Unit One

1. Introducing Anthropology and its Subject Matter

1.1. Concepts in Anthropology
To begin with the etymology of the term, the term anthropology is a compound of two Greek
words, ‗anthropos‘ and ‗logos‘, which can be translated as ‗human being/mankind‘ and
‗reason/study/science‘, respectively. So, anthropology means ‗reason about humans‘ or ‗the
study or science of humankind or humanity‘. Moreover, man has two important characteristics:
biological and cultural: It is very important to understand that the biological and the cultural
characteristics are inseparable elements. Culture influences human physical structures and the
vise-versa.
Hence, if we take it literally, it is the study of humans. In one sense, this is an accurate
description to the extent that anthropology raises a wide variety of questions about the human
condition. Yet this literal definition is not particularly illuminating; because a number of other
academic disciplines—including sociology, biology, psychology, political science, economics,
and history—also study human beings. What is it that distinguishes anthropology from all of
these other disciplines? Anthropology is the study of people—their origins, their development,
and contemporary variations, wherever and whenever they have been found. It is a broad
scientific discipline dedicated to the comparative study of humans as a group, from its first
appearance on earth to its present stage of development. Of all the disciplines that study humans,
anthropology is by far the broadest in scope.
In more specific terms, anthropology is a science which:
Investigates the strategies for living that are learned and shared by people as members of
human social groups;
Examines the characteristics that human beings share as members of one species (homo
sapiens) and the diverse ways that people live in different environments;
Analyses the products of social groups -material objects (material cultures) and non-
material creations (religion/beliefs, social values, institutions, practices, etc).

Anthropology is an intellectually challenging, theoretically ambitious subject, which tries to

achieve an understanding of culture, society and humanity through detailed studies of

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community life, supplemented by comparison. It seeks to explain how and why people are both
similar and different through examination of our biological and cultural past and comparative
study of contemporary human societies. Its ultimate goal is to develop an integrated picture of
humankind—a goal that encompasses an almost infinite number of questions about all aspects of
our existence. We ask, for example, what makes us human? Why do some groups of people tend
to be tall and lanky, while others tend to be short and stocky? Why do some groups of people
practice agriculture, while others hunt for a living?

As a matter of simplicity and brevity, anthropology primarily offers two kinds of insight. First,
the discipline produces knowledge about the actual biological and cultural variations in the
world; second, anthropology offers methods and theoretical perspectives enabling the
practitioner to explore, compare, understand and solve these varied expressions of the human
condition.

1.2 The Historical Development of Anthropology

Like the other social sciences, anthropology is a fairly recent discipline. It was given its present
shape during the twentieth century, but it has important forerunners in the historiography,
geography, travel writing, philosophy and jurisprudence of earlier times.

If we restrict ourselves to anthropology as a scientific discipline, some would trace its roots back
to the European Enlightenment, during the eighteenth century; others would claim that
anthropology did not arise as a science until the 1850s, yet others would argue that
anthropological research in its present-day sense only commenced after the First World War. Nor
can we avoid such ambiguities.

The present academic anthropology has its roots in the works and ideas of the great ancient and
Medieval Greek, Roman, and Hebrew philosophers and social thinkers. These people were
interested in the nature, origin and destiny of man, and the morality and ethics of human
relationships. While the roots of anthropology can be generally traced through the history of
western culture as far back as ancient Greek social philosophical thinking, the discipline did not
emerge as distinct field of study until the mid-nineteenth century.

Generally speaking, anthropology as an academic discipline was born during the 19th century,
out of the intellectual atmosphere of Enlightenment, which is the eighteenth century social

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philosophical movement that emphasized human progress and the poser of reason, and based on
Darwinian Theory of Evolution. By the late 1870s, anthropology was beginning to emerge as a
profession. A major impetus for its growth was the expansion of western colonial powers and
their consequent desire to better understand the peoples living under colonial domination.

During its formative years, anthropology became a profession primarily in museums. In this
regard, in the 1870s and 1880s many museums devoted to the study of humankind were found in
Europe, North America and South America.

Early anthropologists mainly studied small communities in technologically simple societies.

Such societies are often called by various names, such as, ―traditional‖, ―non-industrialized
and/or simple societies‖. Anthropologists of the early 1900s emphasized the study of social and
cultural differences among human groups. Here, many of the indigenous peoples of non-western
world and their social and cultural features were studied in detail and documented. This approach
is called ethnography. By the mid-1900, however, anthropologists attempted to discover
universal human patterns and the common bio-psychological traits that bind all human beings.
This approach is called ethnology. Ethnology aims at the comparative understanding and
analysis of different ethnic groups across time and space.

In Ethiopia, professional anthropologists have been studying culture and society on a more
intensive level only since the late 1950s. Almost inevitably, the initial emphasis was on
ethnography, the description of specific customs, cultures and ways of life

1.3. Scope and Subject Matter of Anthropology

The breadth and depth of anthropology is immense. There is no time and space left as far as man
exists. In other words, the temporal dimension covers the past, the present and even the future. In
terms of the spatial dimension, anthropology studies from Arctic to Desert, from Megapolis to
hunting gathering areas. The discipline covers all aspects of human ways of life experiences and
existence, as humans live in a social group.
It touches all aspect of human conditions as far as there is a relation between human beings and
natural environment and man and man. Anthropology not only tries to account for the social and
cultural variation in the world, but a crucial part of the anthropological project also consists in
conceptualizing and understanding similarities between social systems and human relationships.
As one of the foremost anthropologists of the twentieth century, Claude Lévi-Strauss, has
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expressed it: ‗Anthropology has humanity as its object of research, but unlike the other human
sciences, it tries to grasp its object through its most diverse manifestations‘ (1983, p. 49). In
other words, anthropology studies humanity with its all aspects of existence, and in its all means
of differences (diversity) and similarities (commonality). Where every human being lives, there
is always anthropology.
Anthropology helps human beings to look into themselves by searching for answers to questions
that challenge us. Some of the questions central to humanity and anthropology are:
What are the commonalities among humans worldwide? (That is what does every human
culture do?)
What are the variations among humans worldwide (That is, what things do only some
cultures do?)
Why do these commonalties and variations exist in the first place? (In other worlds why
aren't all human cultures the same?)
How does humanity change through time? (Is it still evolving, and if so, how?)
In order to address these questions, we should rely on key anthropological concepts of
comparative approach (cultural relativism) and evolution. The comparative approach, which is
also known as cultural relativism, entails that cultures shouldn't be compared one another for the
sake of saying one is better than the other. Instead cultures should be compared in order to
understand how and why they differ and share commonalties each other. The comparative
approach or cultural relativism encourages us not to make moral judgments about different kinds
of humanity, and it examines cultures on their own and from the perspective of their unique
history and origin.
The discipline is also accounting for the interrelationships between different aspects of human
existence, and usually anthropologists investigate these interrelationships taking as their point of
departure a detailed study of local life in a particular society or a delineated social environment.
One may therefore say that anthropology asks large questions, while at the same time it draws its
most important insights from small places. Anthropologists strive for an understanding of the
biological and cultural origins and evolutionary development of the species. They are concerned
with all humans, both past and present, as well as their behavior patterns, thought systems, and
material possessions. In short, anthropology aims to describe, in the broadest sense, what it
means to be human (Peacock, 1986).

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1.4. Sub-fields of Anthropology

There is no time, space and characteristics left to study human beings. It is as wide as an ocean.
Accordingly, it is required to divide and understand in-depth. Accordingly, anthropology has
often categorized into four major subfields: Physical/Biological Anthropology, Archeology,
Linguistic Anthropology and Socio-Cultural Anthropology.

1.4.1. Physical/Biological Anthropology

Physical anthropology is the branch of anthropology most closely related to the natural sciences,
particularly biology; that is why it is often called biological anthropology. Unlike comparative
biologists, physical anthropologists study how culture and environment have influenced these
two areas of biological evolution and contemporary variations. Human biology affects or even
explains some aspects of behavior, society, and culture like marriage patterns, sexual division of
labor, gender ideology etc. The features of culture in turn have biological effects like the
standards of attractiveness, food preferences, and human sexuality. Biological variations such as
morphology/structure, color, and size are reflections of changes in living organism. Since change
occurs in the universe, it also applies in human beings.

Human biological variations are the result of the cumulative processes of invisible changes
occurring in every fraction of second in human life. These changes have been accumulated and
passed through genes. Genes are characteristics that carry biological traits of an organism,
including human beings. The major sources of biological variations are derived from the
interrelated effects of natural selection, geographical isolation, genetic mutations.

Physical anthropology is essentially concerned with two broad areas of investigation: human
evolution and genetics. Human evolution is the study of the gradual processes of simple forms
into more differentiated structures in hominid. It is interested in reconstructing the evolutionary
record of the human species using fossils/bones. Human evolution itself is further divided into
three special fields of study: paleoanthropology, primatology and anthropometry.
Paleoanthropology: is a subspecialty in physical anthropology which is interested in the search
for fossil remains from prehistoric times to trace the development of outstanding human
physical, social and cultural characteristics. Paleoanthropology is the study of human evolution
through analysis of fossil remains.

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Primatology: The study of the biology and behavior of primates, that is, the animals that most
closely resemble human beings in terms of physiological and anatomical structure, is an
important field in physical anthropology.
Anthropometry: The study of human variations within and among different populations in time
and space, human ecology, population genetics, etc makeup the central concerns of this sub-
branch of physical anthropology. These physical differences may be in terms of blood types, skin
colors, skull shape, facial shape, hair texture, and the like.

Human genetics concerns to investigate how and why the physical traits of contemporary human
populations vary throughout the world. It focuses to examine the genetic materials of an
organism such as DNA and RNA. In addition, genetic studies are crucial in understanding –how
evolution works and plays important role in identifying the genetic source of some hereditary
disease like sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.

Evolution is another key concept in anthropology which, together with the comparative approach
(cultural relativism) allows us to the address fundamental questions regarding our distant origin,
current stage of growth, forms of adaptation, and predict future direction of development. By
studying evolution, the change of species through time, anthropologists tend to treat humanity as
one of the biological species in the animal kingdom.

In this respect, human biology and culture have evolved over millions of years and they will
continue to evolve together. Human biology affects human culture; and similarly, human culture
affects human biology. One example of this is that the brain size of humans has become larger
over millions of years of evolution, and this is considered biological change. Whereas, the
change in human brain has brought cultural changes in terms of increased intelligence, language
and even the emergence of writing. This is why anthropologists use the term bio-cultural to
describe the dual nature of human evolution: both biological and cultural dimensions. Human
beings are described as a bio-cultural animal.

The Bio-cultural Animal

Humanity evolves both as a result of biological factors and cultural factors. For this reason,
anthropologists call it bio-cultural evolution. Culture, is the set of ideas that dictate how you see
and act in the world. Although humans survive by using both their biology and cultural

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information, all other animals survive mainly through their biology and by relying on instinct
rather than such cultural information.

For example, cultural, not instinctual, information tells you certain kinds of wood are good for
making a digging stick. You don‘t know about different kinds of wood instinctually but because
detailed information about the properties of different kinds of wood was passed on to your mind
culturally — through some form of language — by your parent generation or your peers.
This difference may seem trivial, but it‘s actually very important. For example, consider the
following cultural behaviors and their possible involvement with biological evolution of our
species:
 The earliest use of stone tools corresponds with increased consumption of animal protein.
More animal protein in turn changes the hominid diet and potentially its anatomy.

 The use of clothing (itself a cultural artifact) allows human bodies to survive in
environments they wouldn‘t normally survive in. For example, the human body is
naturally best-suited for equatorial environments, not the Arctic, but the invention of
heavy coats and other such clothing enables that body to survive Arctic temperatures.

As a result, Paleo-anthropologists are concerned with understanding how bio-cultural

evolutionary factors shaped humanity through time.
Humanity is the most common term we use to refer to human beings. Humanity stands for the
human species, a group of life forms with the following characteristics:
 Bipedalism (walking on two legs);
 Relatively small teeth for primates of our size;
 Relatively large brains for primates of our size;
 Using modern language to communicate ideas; and
 Using complex sets of ideas called culture to survive.
Standing on two legs and having particularly small teeth and large brains are all anatomical
characteristics, and they‘re studied by anthropologists focusing on human biological evolution.
Surviving by using a wide array of cultural information (including instructions for making a
pottery or farming tools in Ethiopia) is the use of culture. It‘s studied by other anthropologists,
and even more study the evolution of language.

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Humanity is a general term that doesn‘t specify whether you‘re talking about males, females,
adults, or children; it simply means our species- Homo sapiens sapiens- at large. The term
humanity can be applied to modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) as well as some of our most
recent ancestors, placed more generally in Homo sapiens, without the subspecies (the second
sapiens) suffix. Exactly when Homo sapiens evolved into Homo sapiens sapiens is a complex
question based on when humans became anatomically modern and when they became
behaviorally modern.
Origin of the Modern Human Species: Homo Sapiens Sapiens

One of the major questions anthropologists grapple with is the origins of humankind. The fossil
record preserves evidence of past life on Earth, tracing a progression of simple one-celled
organisms to increasingly diverse forms. How did these different forms of life emerge and new
species arise? The biological explanations for this process are the focus of this section.

Theories concerning the evolution of life date back to the ancient Greeks, but it were only during
the 19thcentury that the first comprehensive theories of evolution were developed. They were
made possible through discoveries in many different areas. The acceptance of evolutionary
theory is based on research in many fields.

The most profound questions are the ones that perplex us the most. Where did we come from?
Why are we here? What is our place in the universe? These questions have been shared by many
people throughout history. Most cultures have developed explanations that provide answers to
these fundamental questions. Cosmologies are conceptual frameworks that present the universe
(the cosmos) as an orderly system. They often include answers to these basic questions about
human origins and the place of human kind in the universe, usually considered the most sacred
of all cosmological conceptions.

Cosmologies account for the ways in which supernatural beings or forces formed human
beings and the planet we live on. These beliefs are transmitted from generation to generation
through ritual, education, laws, art, and language.

Western Traditions of Origins

In Western cultural traditions, the ancient Greeks had various mythological explanations for
human origins. One early view was that Prometheus fashioned humans out of water and earth.

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Another had Zeus ordering Pyrrha, the inventor of fire, to throw stones behind his back, which in
turn became men and women. Later Greek views considered bio-logical evolution. The Greek
philosopher Thales of Miletus (c.636–546BC) attempted to understand the origin and the
existence of the world without reference to mythology.

The most important cosmological tradition affecting Western views of creation is recounted in
the biblical Book of Genesis, which is found in Greek texts dating back to the 3rd century BC.
This Judaic tradition describes how God created the cosmos. It begins with ―In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth‖ and describes how creation took six days during which
light, heaven, Earth, vegetation, Sun, Moon, stars, birds, fish, animals, and humans originated.
Yahweh, the Creator, made man, Adam, from ―dust‖ and placed him in the Garden of Eden.
Woman, Eve, was created from Adam‘s rib. Later, as Christianity spread throughout Europe, this
tradition became the dominant cosmological explanation of human origins.

The biblical account of creation led to a static, fixed view of plant and animal species and the age
of the Earth. Because the Bible recounted the creation of the world and everything on it in six
days, medieval theologians reasoned that the various species of plants and animals must be fixed
in nature. God had created plant and animal species to fit perfectly within specific environments
and did not intend for them to change. They had been unaltered since the time of the divine
creation, and no new species had emerged. This idea regarding the permanence of species
influenced the thinking of many early scholars and theologians.

Evolutionary and Paleo-anthropological Perspectives on Human Origin

As opposed to cosmological explanations, today anthropologists rely on scientific views of

evolution in order to explain human origins. Simply put, evolution refers to a process and
gradual change in specie over time.

In fact, evolution is used to describe the cumulative effects of three independent facts.
Importantly, these attributes of evolution can be observed in nature every day. They are:
 Replication: The fact that life forms have offspring;
 Variation: The fact that each offspring is slightly different from its parents, and its
siblings; and
 Selection: The fact that not all offspring survive, and those that do tend to be the ones
best suited to their environment.

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The scientific explanation of human origin and the concept of evolution are attributed to a series
of discoveries of early modern period and the works of handful of scientists in the
physical/natural sciences. One of the prominent persons in relation to this development is
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a British Naturalist of the period. Charles Darwin is known for his
theory of natural selection in the evolution of species and the idea of survival of the fittest.

One of Charles Darwin‘s contributions to civilization was to demonstrate that humanity was part
of the world of living things, not separate from it. For thousands of years, Western civilization,
backed up by the biblical story of creation, held humanity as a special creation fundamentally
different from all other living things. By Darwin‘s time, many were beginning to question this
assessment, but the cultural pressure to conform to the dominant religion prevented most from
saying so out loud. But Darwin‘s ideas and the many it fertilized set the foundation for a new
study: the study of humans as living, evolving creatures in many ways no different from the rest
of animal life.

Today, anthropologists have countless amounts of data, much of it based on studies of DNA, the
molecule that shapes all Earth life, to back the claims Darwin made in 1859. In doing so,
anthropologists study humanity as a biological phenomenon by raising questions such as:

 What species are we most and least like?

 Where and when did we fist appear?

 What were our ancestors like?

 Can we learn about human behavior from the behavior of our nearest relatives, the
chimpanzees and gorillas?

 Is our species still evolving? How do modern human genetics, population growth, and
other current issues play out from a biological perspective?

The answers to the above mentioned and many other questions about our species in the study of
evolution, the change through time of the properties of a living species. That‘s because evolution
is the foundation of the life sciences. Many kinds of life forms have become extinct (like the
dinosaurs), but each of today‘s living species (including humanity) has an evolutionary ancestry
that reaches far back in time.

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1.4.1 Archaeological Anthropology

Archaeological anthropology or simply archaeology studies the ways of lives of past peoples by
excavating and analyzing the material culture/physical remains (artifacts, features and eco-facts)
they left behind.
Artifacts are material remains made and used by the past peoples and that can be removed from
the site and taken to the laboratory for further analysis. Tools, ornaments, arrowheads, coins,
and fragments of pottery are examples of artifacts.
Features are like artifacts, are made or modified by past people, but they cannot be readily
carried away from the site. Archaeological features include such things as house foundations,
ancient buildings, fireplaces, steles, and postholes.
Eco-facts are non-art factual, organic and environmental remains such as soil, animal bones,
and plant remains that were not made or altered by humans; but were used by them. Eco-facts
provide archaeologists with important data concerning the environment and how people used
natural resources in the past.
Archaeology has also its own subfields or areas of specialties. The most important ones are -
Prehistoric Archaeology and Historical Archaeology. Prehistoric archaeology investigates
human prehistory and prehistoric cultures. It focuses on entire period between 6,000 years ago
and the time of the first stone tools (the first artifacts), around 2.5 million years ago, is called
prehistory. Historic archaeologists help to reconstruct the cultures of people who used writing
and about whom historical documents have been written. Historic archaeology takes advantage
of the fact that about 6,000 years ago, some human groups invented language and began to write
down things that can tell about the past.

We Ethiopian have very glorious past. Area logical findings in North, south, east and western
part of the country have shown our county belonged to those countries which have old
civilization.

1.4.3. Linguistic Anthropology

Indeed, linguistic anthropology or anthropological linguistics studies human language as a

cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice in its social and cultural context, across
space and time. Language is basically a system of information transmission and reception.
Humans communicate messages by sound (speech), by gesture (body language), and in other

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visual ways such as writing. Analogous to genes that carry and transmit genetic materials to
offspring, languages hand down cultural traits from one generation to another. In fact, some
would argue that language is the most distinctive feature of being human.

Linguistic anthropology, which studies contemporary human languages as well as those of the
past, is divided into four distinct branches or areas of research: Structural or Descriptive
Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Ethno-Linguistics, and Socio-linguistics.

Structural /Descriptive Linguistics:- studies the structure of linguistic patterns. It examines

sound systems, grammatical systems, and the meanings attached to words in specific languages
to understand the structure and set of rules of given language. Every culture has a distinctive
language with its own logical structure and set of rules for putting words and sounds together for
the purpose of communicating. In its simplest form, the task of the descriptive linguist is to
compile dictionaries and grammar books for previously unwritten languages. For structuralist
linguist or structural linguistic anthropologist, even if there are thousands of human languages, at
least structurally all of them are similar making it possible for everyone of us to grasp and learn
languages other than our so called ‗mother tongue‘.

Ethno-linguistics (cultural linguistics): examines the relationship between language and

culture. In any language, certain cultural aspects that are emphasized (such as types of snow
among the Inuit, cows among the pastoral Maasai, or automobiles in U.S. culture) are reflected
in the vocabulary. Moreover, cultural linguists explore how different linguistic categories can
affect how people categorize their experiences, how they think, and how they perceive the world
around them.

Historical linguistics:- deals with the emergence of language in general and how specific
languages have diverged over time. It focuses on the comparison and classifications of different
languages to differentiate the historical links between them.

Socio-linguistics:- investigates linguistic variation within a given language. No language is a

homogeneous system in which everyone speaks just like everyone else. One reason for variation
is geography, as in regional dialects and accents. Linguistic variation also is expressed in the
bilingualism of ethnic groups.

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Linguistic anthropology generally focuses on the evolution of languages. It tries to understand
languages variation in their structures, units, and grammatical formations. It gives special
attention to the study of unwritten languages. Language is a key to explore a culture.

1.4.4. Socio-Cultural Anthropology

It is also often called social anthropology or cultural anthropology. Socio-cultural anthropology

is the largest sub-fields of anthropology. It deals with human society and culture. Society is the
group of people who have similar ways of life, but culture is a way of life of a group of people.
Society and culture are two sides of the same coin. Socio-cultural anthropology describes,
analyzes, interprets, and explains social, cultural and material life of contemporary human
societies. It studies the social (human relations), symbolic or nonmaterial (religious, language,
and any other symbols) and material (all man-made objects) lives of living peoples.

Socio-cultural anthropologists engage in two aspects of study: Ethnography (based on field

work) and Ethnology (based on cross-cultural comparison). Ethnography provides a
comprehensive account of a particular community, society, or culture. It describes the features of
specific cultures in as much detail as possible including local behavior, beliefs, customs, social
life, economic activities, politics, and religion. These detailed descriptions (ethnographies) are
the result of extensive field studies (usually a year or two, in duration) in which the
anthropologist observes, talks to, and lives with the people he or she is studying. During
ethnographic fieldwork, the anthropologist (ethnographer) gathers data that he or she organizes,
describes, analyzes, and interprets to build and present that account, which may be in the form of
a book, article, or film.

Ethnology is the comparative study of contemporary cultures and societies, wherever they may
be found. It examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results of ethnography the data
gathered in different societies. It uses such data to compare and contrast and to make
generalizations about society and culture. In other words, Ethnologists seek to understand both
why people today and in the recent past differ in terms of ideas and behavior patterns and what
all cultures in the world have in common with one another. Looking beyond the particular to the
more general, ethnologists attempt to identify and explain cultural differences and similarities, to
test hypotheses, and to build theory to enhance our understanding of how social and cultural

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systems work. Indeed, the primary objective of ethnology is to uncover general cultural
principles, the ―rules‖ that govern human behavior.

Ethnography Ethnology
Requires field work to collect data Uses data collected by a series of researchers
Often descriptive Usually synthetic
Group/community specific Comparative/cross-cultural

Socio-cultural anthropology uses ethnographical and ethnological approaches to answer all sort
of questions related to culture and human societies. To properly address emerging questions
related to culture and societies, it has been sub-divided into many other specialized fields as:
Anthropology of Art, Medical Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Economic Anthropology,
Political Anthropology, Development Anthropology, Anthropology of Religion, Demographic
Anthropology, Ecological Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, etc.

1.5. Unique (Basic) Features of Anthropology

Several distinguishing characteristics identify anthropology from other discipline. Anthropology

is unique in its scope, approach, focus and method of study. Anthropology has a broad scope. It
is interested in all human beings, whether contemporary or past, ''primitive'' or '' civilized'' and
that they are interested in many different aspects of humans, including their phenotypic
characteristics, family lives, marriages, political systems, economic lives, technology, belief,
health care systems, personality types, and languages. No place or time is too remote to escape
the anthropologist's notice. No dimension of human kind, from genes to art styles, is outside the
anthropologist's attention. Indeed, Anthropology is the broad study of human kind, around the
world and throughout time.

The second important feature is its approach. In its approach anthropology is holistic,
relativistic, and focused one. Holistic in a sense that it looks any phenomena from different
vantage points. Accordingly, anthropology considers culture, history, language and biology
essential to a complete understanding of society. Anthropology seeks to understand human
beings as whole organisms who adapt to their environments through a complex interaction of
biology and culture. The concept of relativity is highly appreciated in anthological studies.
Anthropology tries to study and explain a certain belief, practice or institution of a group of
people in its own context. It does not make value judgment, i.e., declaring that this belief or

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practice is ‗good‘ or ‗bad‘. Anthropology's comparative perspective helps to understand
differences and similarities across time and place. Another important perspective is a way of
looking at people's ideas. It considers insiders' views as a primary focus of any anthropological
inquiry. Anthropological studies give attention to how people perceive themselves and
understand their world; how a particular group of people explain about their action, or give
meaning to their behaviour or cultural practices. This is what anthropologists call emic
perspective.

Another important unique feature is its research approach. Anthropology is highly dependent on
qualitative research to understand the meaning behind any human activity. Extended fieldwork,
participant observation, in-depth and key informant interviews and focus-group discussion are
qualitative research instruments to explore information change and continuities in human
societies. Ethnographic fieldwork is an important strategy is normally required to spend a year or
more with research subjects and document realities occurring across time. For most
anthropologists, fieldwork is a process requiring them to ‗tune-in; hangout; and hang-on’ to the
societies and cultures whom they are interested to study.

Focusing more on the local than the big social processes has been another exclusive approach
in the discipline. Paying great attention to local or micro-social processes certainly help us to
better understand big changes in societies. A detailed account of an event or phenomenon
discovers multiple realities in a community.

1.6. Misconceptions about Anthropology

Due to lack of appropriate awareness about the nature, scope and subject matter of the discipline,
different misconceptions are held about anthropology. One misconception about anthropology is
related to the area of its study. It is said that anthropology is limited to the study of "primitive"
societies. Indeed, most of the works done by anthropologists during early periods focused on
isolated, so called "primitive", small scale societies. However, anthropologists nowadays study
most advanced and most complex societies as well.

Another misconception is that anthropologists only study the rural people and rural areas. As a
matter of fact, most of the studies conducted during the formative years (when it undergone a
process of development to be developed as a separate fields of study) of the discipline focused on
rural areas. But now, anthropologists are also interested in the study of urban people and urban

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areas. There is a distinct sub-discipline devoted to the study of urban societies called - Urban
Anthropology - which focuses on urban areas and in complex cities.

It is also wrongly misconceived that anthropology is the study of fossil evidences of the proto-
humans like that of Lucy/Dinkeneshe. It is true that anthropology is interested in the question of
the origin of modern human beings. However, this doesn‘t mean that anthropology is all about
the study of human evolution. It studies the biological and the cultural aspects of humans and
examines the existing human physical and biological variations and cultural diversity.

It is also misconceived that the purpose of anthropology is to study in order to keep and preserve
communities far from development and obsolete cultural practices in museums. Rather,
anthropologists‘ duties are to support those communities' capacity to empower themselves in
development processes. They assist peoples' initiatives instead of imposed policies and ideas
coming from outside and play active roles in bringing about positive change and development in
their own lives.

1.7. The Relationship between Anthropology and Other Disciplines

Anthropology is similar with other social sciences such as sociology, psychology, political
sciences, economics, history, etc. Anthropology greatly overlaps with these disciplines that study
human society. However, anthropology differs from other social sciences and the humanities by
its broad scope, unique approach, perspective, unit of analysis and methods used. In its scope,
anthropology studies humankind in its entirety. In its approach, anthropology studies and
analyzes human ways of life holistically, comparatively and in a relativistic manner. In its
method of research, it is unique in that it undertakes extended fieldwork among the studied
community and develops intimate knowledge of the life and social worlds of its study
group/society through employing those ethnographic data collection techniques such as
participant observation, Key informant interview and focus group discussions.

1.8. The Contributions of Anthropology

By studying anthropology, we get the following benefits, among others.

First, the anthropological perspective, with its emphasis on the comparative study of cultures,
should lead us to the conclusion that our culture is just one way of life among many found in the
world and that it represents one way (among many possible ways) to adapt to a particular set of

16
environmental conditions. Through the process of contrasting and comparing, we gain a fuller
understanding of other cultures and our own.

Anthropology also helps us better understand ourselves or our own ways of life. As a mirror of
human life, by studying others, we can better understand ourselves. Hence, it gives opportunity
to understand and to be critical about the ways of lives of our own community.

Second, anthropology gives us an insight into different ways and modes of life of human society
(social and cultural diversity), which helps to understand the logic and justification behind group
behavior and cultural practices. Knowledge about the rest of the world is particularly important
today because the world has become increasingly interconnected. So, today it is important that
we not only know something about other peoples of the world, but also grasp how our everyday
decisions are influencing them in a multitude of ways and how others‘ decisions are also
influencing ours.

Through its distinctive methodology of long-term, intensive, participant-observation research,

cultural anthropology offers a unique perspective on how local cultural groups are engaging with
the process of globalization.

Because of its relativistic approach, anthropology helps us to be more sensitive to and

appreciative of cultural diversity and variability. It helps us to avoid some of the
misunderstandings that commonly arise when individuals of different cultural traditions come
into contact. Anthropology helps us fight against prejudice and discriminations. It helps us fight
against ethnocentrism; the belief that one's own culture and one's own way of life is superior to
others cultural, social and material life. This arises from ignorance about other ethnic groups and
their ways of lives.

Anthropology is also used as a tool for development. Paying attention to local conditions, is
crucial to solve community problems. The application of anthropological knowledge and
research results have become important element to ensure people‘s rights in development and
able to sustain projects' life. Anthropologists are better equipped with the knowledge, skills and
methods of identifying the needs and interests of local people for the betterment and change of
their lived experiences. It recognizes the advantages of consulting local people to design a
culturally appropriate and socially sensitive change, and protect local people from harmful
policies and projects that threaten them.

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 Unit Two
2. Human Culture and Ties that Connect
2.1. Conceptualizing Culture: What Culture is and what Culture isn't
Definition of Culture

The term culture is not used with consistent meanings. Anthropologists and sociologists define
culture in different ways. A widely accepted and the more comprehensive definition of culture
was provided by the British anthropologist Edward B. Tylor. He defined culture as ―a complex
whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as a member of society‖.

B. Malinowski has defined culture ―as cumulative creation of man". He regarded culture as the
handiwork of man and the medium through which he achieves his ends.

Robert Bierstedt says, ―Culture is the complex whole that consists of everything we think and do
and have as members of society.‖

Combining several of these definitions, we may define culture as the common way of life shared
by a group of people. It includes all things beyond nature and biology.

Culture therefore, is moral, intellectual and spiritual discipline for advancement, in accordance
with the norms and values based on accumulated heritage. Culture is a system of learned
behavior shared by and transmitted among the members of the group.

Culture is a collective heritage learned by individuals and passed from one generation to
another. The individual receives culture as part of social heritage and in turn, may reshape the
culture and introduce changes which then become part of the heritage of succeeding generations.

2.2. Characteristic Features of Culture

Dear students, for the better understanding the concept of culture, it is necessary for us to know
its main features.

Culture is Learned: Culture is not transmitted genetically rather; it is acquired through the
process of learning or interacting with one‘s environment. More than any other species human
relies for their survival on behavior patterns that are learned. Human have no instinct, which
genetically programmed to direct to behave in a particular way. This process of acquiring culture

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after we born is called enculturation. Enculturation is specifically defined as the process by
which an individual learns the rules and values of one‘s culture.

Culture is Shared: For a thing, idea, or behavior pattern to qualify as being ―cultural‖ it must
have a shared meaning by at least two people within a society. In order for a society to operate
effectively, the guidelines must be shared by its members. Without shared culture members of a
society would be unable to communicate and cooperates and confusion and disorder world result.

Culture is Symbolic: Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans and to cultural learning.
A symbol is something verbal or nonverbal, within a particular language or culture that comes to
stand for something else. There need be no obvious, natural, or necessary connection between
the symbol and what it symbolizes.

A symbol‘s meaning is not always obvious. However, many symbols are powerful and often
trigger behaviors or emotional states. For example, the designs and colors of the flags of
different countries represent symbolic associations with abstract ideas and concepts.

Culture is All-Encompassing; Culture encompasses all aspects, which affect people in their
everyday lives. Culture comprises countless material and non-material aspects of human lives.
Culture is the sum total of human creation: intellectual, technical, artistic, physical, and moral; it
is the complex pattern of living that directs human social life, and which each new generation
must learn and to which they eventually add with the dynamics of the social world and the
changing environmental conditions.

Culture is Integrated: Cultures are not haphazard collections of customs and beliefs. Instead,
culture should be thought as of integrated wholes, the parts of which, to some degree, are
interconnected with one another. When we view cultures as integrated systems, we can begin to
see how particular culture traits fit into the whole system and, consequently, how they tend to
make sense within that context.

Culture Can be Adaptive and Maladaptive: Humans have both biological and cultural ways of
coping with environmental stresses. Besides our biological means of adaptation, we also use
"cultural adaptive kits," which contain customary activities and tools that aid us. People adapt
themselves to the environment using culture. The ability to adapt themselves to practically any
ecological condition, unlike other animals, makes humans unique. Culture has allowed the global

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human population to grow from less than 10 million people shortly after the end of the last ice
age to more than 7 billion people today, a mere 10,000 years later. This ability is attributed to
human‘s capacity for creating and using culture. Sometimes, adaptive behavior that offers short-
term benefits to particular subgroups or individuals may harm the environment and threaten the
group's long-term survival. Many cultural patterns such as overconsumption and pollution appear
to be maladaptive in the long run.
Culture is Dynamic: There are no cultures that remain completely static year after year. Culture
is changing constantly as new ideas and new techniques are added as time passes modifying or
changing the old ways.

2.3. Aspects/Elements of Culture

Culture is reflected through the various components that it comprises, viz., values, language,
myths, customs, rituals and laws. Two of the most basic aspects of culture are material and
nonmaterial culture. These are briefly explained as follows:

2.3.1. Material culture

Material culture consist of man-made objects such as tools, implements, furniture, automobiles,
buildings, dams, roads, bridges, and in fact, the physical substance which has been changed and
used by man. It is concerned with the external, mechanical and utilitarian objects. It includes
technical and material equipment. It is referred to as civilization.

2.3.2. Non – Material culture

The term ‗culture‘ when used in the ordinary sense, means ‗non-material culture‘. It is something
internal and intrinsically valuable, reflects the inward nature of man. Non-material culture
consists of the words the people use or the language they speak, the beliefs they hold, values and
virtues they cherish, habits they follow, rituals and practices that they do and the ceremonies they
observe. Some of the aspects of non-material culture listed as follows:

Values

Values are the standards by which member of a society define what is good or bad, beautiful or
ugly. Every society develops both values and expectations regarding the right way to reflect
them. Values are a central aspect of the nonmaterial culture of a society and are important
because they influence the behavior of the members of a society.

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Beliefs

Beliefs are cultural conventions that concern true or false assumptions, specific descriptions of
the nature of the universe and humanity‘s place in it. Values are generalized notions of what is
good and bad; beliefs are more specific and, in form at least, have more content. ―Education is
good‖ is a fundamental value in American society, whereas ―Grading is the best way to evaluate
students‖ is a belief that reflects assumptions.

Norms

Norms are another aspect of nonmaterial culture. Norms are shared rules or guidelines that
define how people ―ought‖ to behave under certain circumstances. Norms are generally
connected to the values, beliefs, and ideologies of a society.

Norms vary in terms of their importance to a culture, these are:

a) Folkway: Norms guiding ordinary usages and conventions of everyday life are known as
folkways. Folkways are norms that are not strictly enforced, such as not leaving your seat for an
elderly people inside a bus/taxi. They may result in a person getting a bad look.

b) Mores: Mores (pronounced MOR-ays) are much stronger norms than are folkways. Mores are
norms that are believed to be essential to core values and we insist on conformity. A person who
steals, rapes, and kills has violated some of society‘s most important mores. People who violate
mores are usually severely punished, although punishment for the violation of mores varies from
society to society. It may take the form of ostracism, vicious gossip, public ridicule, exile, loss of
one‘s job, physical beating, imprisonment, commitment to a mental asylum, or even execution.

2.4. Cultural Unity and Variations: Universality, Generality and Particularity of Culture

In studying human diversity in time and space, anthropologists distinguish among the universal,
the generalized, and the particular. Certain biological, psychological, social, and cultural features
are universal (found in every culture), others are merely generalities (common to several but not
all human groups), other traits are particularities (unique to certain cultural traditions).

1) Universality

Universals are cultural traits that span across all cultures. Most are biologically that distinguish
us from other species – Long period of infant dependency – Year-round sexuality – Complex

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brain that enables use of symbols, languages, and tools Social universals – Life in groups – Some
kind of family – Culture organizes on social life Depends on social interactions for expression
and continuation – Incest taboo – Exogamy (marriage outside one‘s group).

A great example of universality is that whether in Africa or Asia, Australia, or Antarctica, people
understand the universal concept of family. Anthropologists would argue that it's just what we as
humans do - we organize ourselves into families that are based on biology. No matter where you
choose to travel and explore, you'll find a family system.

2) Generality

Generalities are cultural traits that occur in many societies but not all of them. Societies can
share same beliefs and customs because of borrowing Domination (colonial rule) when customs
and procedures are imposed on one culture can also cause generality Independent innovation of
same cultural trait – Farming Examples: – Nuclear family Parents and children.

3) Particularity

Trait of a culture that is not widespread Cultural borrowing – traits once limited are more
widespread Useful traits that don‘t clash with current culture get borrowed Examples: – Food
dishes Particularities are becoming rarer in some ways but also becoming more obvious
Borrowed cultural traits are modified Marriage, parenthood, death, puberty, birth all celebrated
differently.

2.5. Evaluating Cultural Differences: Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism and

Human Rights

The concepts of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism occupy key position in anthropology

A. Ethnocentrism

The common response in all societies to other cultures is to judge them in terms of the values and
customs of their own familiar culture. Ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to see the behaviors,
beliefs, values, and norms of one's own group as the only right way of living and to judge others
by those standards.

Being fond of your own way of life and condescending or even hostile toward other cultures is
normal for all people. Because of ethnocentrism, we often operate on the premise that our own

22
society‘s ways are the correct, normal, better ways, for acting, thinking, feeling and behaving.
Our own group is the centre or axis of everything, and we scale and rate all others with reference
to it. Ethnocentrism is not characteristic only of complex modern societies. People in small,
relatively isolated societies are also ethnocentric in their views about outsiders. It is a cultural
universal. Alien cultural traits are often viewed as being not just different but inferior, less
sensible, and even "unnatural‖.
Ethnocentrism results in prejudices about people from other cultures and the rejection of their
"alien ways." Our ethnocentrism can prevent us from understanding and appreciating another
culture. When there is contact with people from other cultures, ethnocentrism can prevent open
communication and result in misunderstanding and mistrust. The positive aspect of
ethnocentrism has to do with the protection that it can provide for a culture. By causing a
rejection of the foods, customs, and perceptions of people in other cultures, it acts as a
conservative force in preserving traditions of one's own culture. It can help maintain the
separation and uniqueness of cultures.

B. Cultural relativism

We cannot grasp the behavior of other people if we interpret what they say and do in the light of
our values, beliefs, and motives. Instead, we need to examine their behavior as insiders, seeing it
within the framework of their values, beliefs and motives. The concept of cultural relativism
states that cultures differ, so that a cultural trait, act, or idea has no meaning but its meaning only
within its cultural setting.

Cultural relativism suspends judgment and views about the behavior of people from the
perspective of their own culture. Every society has its own culture, which is more or less unique.
Every culture contains its own unique pattern of behavior which may seem alien to people from
other cultural backgrounds. We cannot understand the practices and beliefs separately from the
wider culture of which they are part. A culture has to be studied in terms of its own meanings
and values. Cultural relativism describes a situation where there is an attitude of respect for
cultural differences rather than condemning other people's culture as uncivilized or backward.

Respect for cultural differences involves:

 Appreciating cultural diversity;
 Accepting and respecting other cultures;

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  Trying to understand every culture and its elements in terms of its own context and logic;
 Accepting that each body of custom has inherent dignity and meaning as the way of life
of one group which has worked out to its environment, to the biological needs of its
members, and to the group relationships;
 Knowing that a person's own culture is only one among many; and
 Recognizing that what is immoral, ethical, acceptable, etc, in one culture may not be so in
another culture.

C. Human Rights

In today's world, human rights advocates challenge many of the tenets of cultural relativism.
Many anthropologists are uncomfortable with the strong form of cultural relativism that suggests
that all patterns of culture are equally valid. What if the people practice slavery, violence against
women, torture, or genocide?

Human rights: rights based on justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries,
cultures, and religions. The idea of human rights challenges cultural relativism by invoking a
realm of justice and morality beyond and superior to the laws and customs of particular
countries, cultures, and religions.

Anthropologists respect human diversity. Most ethnographers try to be objective, accurate, and
sensitive in their accounts of other cultures. However, their objectivity, sensitivity and a cross-
cultural perspective got nothing to do with ignoring international standards of justice and
morality.

2.6. Culture Change

Culture changes in several ways. When you examine the history of a society, it is obvious that its
culture has changed over time. Some of the shared behaviors and ideas that were common at one
time are modified or replaced at another time. That is why, any anthropological account of the
culture of any society is a type of snapshot view of one particular time. The anthropologists
return several years after completing a cultural study, he or she would not find exactly the same
situation, for there are no cultures that remain completely static year after year.

Culture change can occur as a result of the following Mechanisms:

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i. Diffusion - the source of new cultural elements in a society may also be another society. The
process by which cultural elements are borrowed from another society and incorporated into the
culture of the recipient group is called diffusion.

 Diffusion is direct when two cultures trade with, intermarry among, or wage war on one
another.

 Diffusion is forced when one culture subjugates another and imposes its customs on the
dominated group.

 Diffusion is indirect when items or traits move from group A to group C via group B
without any firsthand contact between A and C.

ii. Acculturation

Is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups have continuous firsthand contact?
The cultures of either or both groups may be changed by this contact. This usually happens in
situations of trade or colonialism. In situations of continuous contact, cultures have also
exchanged and blended foods, recipes, music, dances, clothing, tools, and technologies.

iii. Invention

It is the process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems. Faced with
comparable problems and challenges, people in different societies have innovated and changed
in similar ways, which is one reason cultural generalities exist. One example is the independent
invention of agriculture in the Middle East and Mexico.

iv. Globalization

The term globalization encompasses a series of processes, including diffusion and acculturation,
working to promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked
and mutually dependent. Promoting such linkages are economic and political forces, as well as
modem systems of transportation and communication. Due to globalization, long-distance
communication is easier, faster, and cheaper than ever, and extends to remote areas. The mass
media help propel a globally spreading culture of consumption. Within nations and across their
borders, the media spread information about products, services, rights, institutions, lifestyles, and
the perceived costs and benefits of globalization.

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2.7. Other concepts of Culture

Cultural Alternatives: refer to the activities which the member of society may freely choose to
follow or not to follow. Several alternatives are associated with a particular cultural universal
thus allowing personal choice. For instance, one widely shared cultural universal by many
societies is that people have to work and participate in some labor activity in order to earn a
living. But the choice of occupation is left to individuals. Choice is limited by the number of
roles & the number of people available to perform them.
Cultural Specialties: refer to the special skills or abilities and behavior associated with the
cultural alternative. Generally, the alternatives are limited by the scope of the division of labor in
society. Once the alternative is chosen, the skill the alternative demands must be learned.
Culture Shock: refers to the psychological maladjustment individuals experience when they
came across the society different from their own culture, i.e. first contact. It is a feeling of
confusion and anxiety caused by contacts with another culture. Culture shock is the
disorientation and frustration of those who find themselves among people who do not share their
basic values and beliefs.
Usually, disagreements over styles of dress, eating habits and other every day matters can be
adjusted to fairly easily. Acute culture shock is most likely when expectations about personal
felling and interactions are violated.

2.8. Culture Area and Cultural Contact in Ethiopia

Put simply culture areas refer to a cluster of related cultures occupying a certain geographical
region. In anthropology the concept of culture area has been used beginning from the 1920s
where Afred Kroeber and his contemporaries were interested in examining the concentration of
cultural trains in a given geographic area.

In the context of Ethiopia, we may come up with different culture are in relation to subsistence.
These are plough culture, Enset culture area, and pastoral society‘s culture area.

A. Plough culture area

Plough culture area represents those parts of the country where agriculture is predominantly the
means by which subsistence is eked out. Most of highland and central parts of the country serves
as the backbone of the economy is considered a plough culture. The area often called plough

26
culture has been a subject of anthropological inquires over the past seven decades starting from
the 1950s. Some of the ethnographers who studied the area that we call plough culture are
Donald Levine, Allen Hobben, Fredrick Gamst and Jack Bauer.

B. Enset Culture Area

Enset culture area, on the other hand, covers a vast region in the southern part of country. Enset
cultivating regions of the present day SNNPRS such as the Guraghe, Sidama and Gedeo areas
constitute enset culture area. In this region, enset serves as a staple diet to the people who make
use the plant in a wide variety of forms for a living.

C. Pastoral Culture Area

Pastoral culture area is found in the low land areas covering a large section of the Afar in the
northwest, Somali in the southeast and Borena of southern of Ethiopia. As opposed ot the above
the cases, inhabitants of the pastoral culture area rely significantly on their herds and cattle for a
living. Mobility of people and herds is a major characteristic feature of the people occupying the
pastoral culture area.

2.9. Ties That Connect: Marriage, Family and Kinship

2.9.1. Marriage

Almost all known societies recognize marriage. The ritual of marriage marks a change in status
for a man and a woman and the acceptance by society of the new family that is formed. The term
marriage is not an easy terms to define. For years, anthropologists have attempted to define these
terms in such a way to cover all known societies.

2.9.1.1 Rules of Marriage

Societies also have rules that state whom one can and cannot marry. Every society knows to
anthropology has established for itself some type of rules regulating mating (sexual intercourse).
The most common form of prohibition is mating with certain type of kin that are defined by the
society as being inappropriate sexual partners. These prohibitions on mating with certain
categories of relatives are known as incest taboos. The most universal form of incest taboo
involves mating between members of the immediate (nuclear) family: mother-sons, father-
daughters, and brother-sisters.

27
There are a few striking examples of marriage between members of the immediate family that
violate the universality of the incest taboo. For political, religious, or economic reasons,
members of the royal families among the ancient Egyptians, Incas and Hawaiians were permitted
to mate with and marry their siblings, although this practiced did not extended to the ordinary
members of those societies.
Marriage is, therefore, a permanent legal union between a man and a woman. It is an important
institution without which the society could never be sustained.

2.9.1.2. Mate Selection: Whom Should You Marry?

In a society one cannot marry anyone whom he or she likes. There are certain strict rules and
regulations.
a) Exogamy:
This is the rule by which a man is not allowed to marry someone from his own social group.
Such prohibited union is designated as incest. Incest is often considered as sin. Different scholars
had tried to find out the explanation behind this prohibition. i.e. how incest taboo came into
operation.
In fact, there are some definite reasons for which practice of exogamy got approval. They are:
A conception of blood relation prevails among the members of a group. Therefore,
marriage within the group-members is considered a marriage between a brother and sister
Attraction between a male and female gets lost due to close relationship in a small group.
There is a popular idea that a great increase of energy and vigor is possible in the progeny
if marriage binds two extremely distant persons who possess no kin relation among them.
Kottak claimed also that exogamy has adaptive value, because it links people into a
wider social network that nurtures, helps, and protects them in times of need pushing
social organization outward, establishing and preserving alliances among groups.

b) Endogamy:

A rule of endogamy requires individuals to marry within their own group and forbids them to
marry outside it. Religious groups such as the Amish, Mormons, Catholics, and Jews have rules
of endogamy, though these are often violated when marriage take place outside the group. Castes
in India and Nepal are also endogamous.

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c) Preferential Cousin Marriage:

A common form of preferred marriage is called preferential cousin marriage and is practiced in
one form or another in most of the major regions of the world. Kinship systems based on
lineages distinguish between two different types of first cousins, these are:

Cross Cousins: are children of siblings of the opposite sex- that is one‘s mother‘s brothers‘
children and one‘s father‘s sisters‘ children.

The most common form of preferential cousin marriage is between cross cousins because it
functions to strengthen and maintain ties between kin groups established by the marriages that
took place in the proceeding generation.

Parallel Cousins: When marriage takes place between the children of the siblings of the same
sex, it is called parallel cousin marriage. Children of siblings of the same sex, namely the
children of one‘s mother‘s sister and one‘s father brother. The mate may come either from one‘s
father‘s brother‘s children or mother's sister‘s children.

A much less common form of cousin marriage is between parallel cousins, the child of one‘s
mother‘s sister or father‘s brother. Found among some Arabic societies in North Africa, it
involves the marriage of a man to his father‘s brother‘s daughter. Since parallel cousins belong to
the same family, such a practice can serve to prevent the fragmentation of family property.

d) The Levirate and Sororate

Another form of mate selection that tends to limit individual choice are those that require a
person to marry the husband or wide of deceased kin.

The levirate- is the custom whereby a widow is expected to marry the brother (or some close
male relative) of her dead husband. Usually any children fathered by the woman‘s new husband
are considered to belong legally to the dead brother rather than to the actual genitor. Such a
custom both serves as a form of social security for the widow and her children and preserved the
rights of her husband‘s family to her sexuality and future children.

The sororate, which comes into play when a wife dies, is the practice of a widower‘s marrying
the sister (or some close female relative) of his deceased wife. In the event that the deceased
spouse has no sibling, the family of the deceased is under a general obligation to supply some

29
equivalent relative as a substitute. For example, in a society that practice sororate, a widower
may be given as a substitute wife the daughter of his deceased wife‘s brother.

2.9.1.3. Type of Marriage

Monogamy: the marriage of one man to one woman at a time.

Polygamy is marriage of a man or woman with two or more mates. Polygamy can be of two
types:

 Polygyny: the marriage of a man to two or more women at a time.

 Polyandy: the marriage of a woman to two or more men at a time

 Marriage of a man with two or more sisters at a time is called sororal polygyny. When
the co-wives are not sisters, the marriage is termed as non-sororal polygyny.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Polygamy marriage

Having two/more wives is often seen as a sign of prestige.
Having multiple wives means wealth, power, & status both for the polygnous husband,
wives and children.
More children, who are considered valuable for future economic and political assets.
Economic advantage: It encourages to work hard (more cows, goats..) for more wives
The Drawbacks of Polygyny: Jealousy among the co-wives who frequently compete for
the husband‘s attention.

2.9.1.4 Economic Consideration of Marriage

Most societies view as a binding contract between at least the husband and wife and, in many
cases, between their respective families as well. Such a contract includes the transfer of certain
rights between the parties involved: rights of sexual access, legal rights to children, and rights of
the spouses to each other‘s economic goods and services. Often the transfer of rights is
accompanied by the transfer of some type of economic consideration. These transactions, which
may take place either before or after the marriage can be divided into three categories:
1. Bride Price
2. Bride Service
3. Dowry

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Bride Price: It is also known as bride wealth, is the compensation given upon marriage by the
family of the groom to the family of the bride. According to Murdock, in Africa it was estimated
that 82% of the societies require the payment of bride price.

Anthropologists identified a number of important functions that the institutions of bride price
performed for the well-being of the society. Bride price has been seen as security or insurance
for the good treatment of the wife: as mechanism to stabilize marriage by reducing the possibility
of divorce as a form of compensation to the bride‘s lineage for the loss of her economic potential
and childbearing capacity and as a symbol of the union between two large groups of kin.

Bride Service: When the groom works for his wife‘s family, this is known as bride service. It
may be recalled that in the Old Testament, Jacob labored for seven years in order to marry Leah,
and then another seven years to marry Rachel; Leah‘s younger sister, thus performed fourteen
years of bride service for his father-in-law. Bride service was also practiced by the Yanomamo, a
people living in the low- lands of Venezuela. During this time, the groom lives with the bride‘s
parents and hunts for them.

Dowry: A dowry involves a transfer of goods or money in the opposite direction, from the
bride's family to the groom‘s family.

2.9.1.5 Post-Marital Residence

Where the newly married couple lives after the marriage ritual is governed by cultural rules,
which are referred to as post-marital residence rule.

 Patrilocal Residence: the married couple lives with or near the relatives of the husband‘s
father.
 Matrilocal Residence: the married couple lives with or near the relatives of the wife.
 Avunculocal Residence: The married couple lives with or near the husband‘s mother‘s
brother.
 Ambilocal/Bilocal Residence: The married couple has a choice of living with relatives of
the wife or relatives of the husband
 Neolocal Residence: The Married couple forms an independent place of residence away
from the relatives of either spouse.

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2.9.2. Family

Family is the basis of human society. It is the most important primary group in society. The
family, as an institution, is universal. It is the most permanent and most pervasive of all social
institutions. The interpersonal relationships within the family make the family an endurable
social unit.

Cultural anthropologists have identified two fundamentally different types of family structure-the
nuclear family and the extended family.

1. The Nuclear Family: Consisting of husband and wife and their children, the nuclear family is
a two-generation family formed around the conjugal or marital union. Even though the unclear
family to some degree is part of a larger family structure, it remains relatively autonomous and
independent unity. That is, the everyday needs of economic support, childcare, and social
interaction are met within the nuclear family itself rather than by a wider set of relatives.

In those societies based on the nuclear family, it is customary for married couple to live apart
from either set of parents (neolocal residence), nor is there any particular obligation or
expectation for the married couple to care for their aging parents in their own homes. Generally,
parents are not actively involved in mate selection for their children, in no way legitimize the
marriages of their children, in no way legitimize the marriages of their children, and have no
control over whether or not their children remain married.

2. The Extended Family

In societies based on extended families, blood ties are more important than ties of marriage.
Extended families consist of two or more families that are linked by blood ties. Most commonly,
this takes the form of a married couple living with one or more of their married children in a
single household or homestead and under the authority of a family head.

In the case of a patrilineal extended family, the young couple takes up residence in the
homestead of the husband‘s father, and the husband continues to work for his father, who also
runs the household. Moreover, most of the personal property in the household is not owned by
the newlyweds, but is controlled by the husbands‘ father.
It is important to point out that in extended family systems, marriage is viewed more as bringing
a daughter into the family than acquiring a wife. When a woman marries into an extended

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family, she most often comes under the control of her mother-in-law, who allocates chores and
supervises her domestic activities. There is a rough correlation found between extended family
system and an agricultural way of life.

2.9.2.1 Functions Marriage and Family

Family performs certain specific functions which can be mentioned as follows:

1. Biological Function: The institution of marriage and family serves biological (sexual and
reproductive) function. The institution of marriage regulates and socially validates long term,
sexual relations between males and females. Thus, husband wife relationship come into existence
and become a socially approved means to control sexual relation and a socially approved basis of
the family. The task of perpetuating the population of a society is an important function of a
family. Society reproduces itself through family.
2. Economic Function: Marriage brings economic co-operation between men and women and
ensure survival of individuals in a society. With the birth of off-springs the division of labor
based on sex and generation come into play. In small scale societies family is a self-contained
economic unit of production, consumption and distribution.

3. Social Function: Marriage is based on the desire to perpetuate one‘s family line. In marriage
one adds, not only a spouse but most of the spouse‘s relatives to one‘s own group of kin. This
means the institution of marriage brings with it the creation and perpetuation of the family, the
form of person to person relations and linking once kin group to another kin group.
4. Educational and Socialization Function: children learn an immense amount of knowledge,
culture, values prescribed by society, before they assume their place as adult members of a
society. The task of educating and enculturating children is distributed among parents. Moreover,
family behaves as an effective agent in the transmission of social heritage.
2.9.3 Kinship
A significant concept in Anthropology – The concept of kinship is vitally important in
Anthropology, because kinship and family constitute the focal points in anthropological studies.

Kinship is the method of reckoning relationship. In any society every adult individual belongs to
two different nuclear families. The family in which he was born and reared is called „family of
orientation‘. The other family to which he establishes relation through marriage is called

33
„family of procreation‟. A kinship system is neither a social group nor does it correspond to
organized aggregation of individuals. It is a structured system of relationships where individuals
are bound together by complex interlocking and ramifying ties.

The relationship based on blood ties is called “consanguineous kinship‖, and the relatives of
this kind are called ‗consanguineous kin‘. The desire for reproduction gives rise to another kind
of binding relationship. ―This kind of bond, which arises out of a socially or legally defined
marital relationship, is called a final relationship‖, and the relatives so related are called „a final
kin‟. The final kinds [husband and wife] are not related to one another through blood.

2.9.4. Descent
Descent refers to the social recognition of the biological relationship that exists between the
individuals. The rule of descent refers to a set of principles by which an individual traces his
descent. In almost all societies kinship connections are very significant. An individual always
possesses certain obligations towards his kinsmen and he also expects the same from his
kinsmen. Succession and inheritance is related to this rule of descent. There are three important
rules of decent are follows;

1. Patrilineal descent

When descent is traced solely through the male line, it is called patrilineal descent. A man‘s
sons and daughters all belong to the same descent group by birth, but it only the sons who
continue the affiliation. Succession and inheritance pass through the male line.

2. Matrilineal descent
When the descent is traced solely through the female line, it is called matrilineal descent. At
birth, children of both sexes belong to mother‘s descent group, but later only females acquire the
succession and inheritance. Therefore, daughters carry the tradition, generation after generation.

3. Cognatic Descent

In some society‘s individuals are free to show their genealogical links either through men or
women. Some people of such society are therefore connected with the kin-group of father and
others with the kin group of mothers. There is no fixed rule to trace the succession and
inheritance; any combination of lineal link is possible in such societies.

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 Unit Three
3. Marginalized, Minorities, and Vulnerable Groups
3.1. Definition of concepts

What is marginalization? Marginalization is defined as a treatment of a person or social group as

minor, insignificant or peripheral. Marginalization involves exclusion of certain groups from
social interactions, marriage relations, sharing food and drinks, and working and living together.

Who are mostly marginalized? There are marginalized social groups in every society and culture.
Women, children, older people, and people with disabilities are among marginalized groups
across the world. The nature and level of marginalization varies from society to society as a
result of cultural diversity. Religious, ethnic, and racial minorities are also among social groups
marginalized in different societies and cultures. Crafts workers such as tanners, potters, and
ironsmiths are marginalized in many parts of Ethiopia.

What is vulnerability? Vulnerability refers to the state of being exposed to physical or emotional
injuries. Vulnerable groups are people exposed to possibilities of attack, harms or mistreatment.
As a result, vulnerable persons/groups need special attention, protection and support. For
example, children and people with disabilities need special support and protection as they are
exposed to risks and neglect because of their age and disabilities. Universities have introduced
special needs education for students with disabilities to give them special support.

Minority groups: The phrase ‗minority group‘ refers to a small group of people within a
community, region, or country. In most cases, minority groups are different from the majority
population in terms of race, religion, ethnicity, and language. For example, black Americans are
minorities in the United States of America. Christians could be minorities in a Muslim majority
country. Hence, minority groups can be ethnic minorities, religious minorities, or racial
minorities in a given community, region of country. There are different forms of marginalization.

3.2. Gender-based Marginalization

Gender inequality involves discrimination on a group of people based on their gender. Gender
inequality mainly arises from socio-cultural norms. The manifestations of gender inequality
varies from culture to culture. Girls and women face negative discrimination in societies across

35
the world. Women are exposed to social and economic inequalities involving unfair distribution
of wealth, income and job opportunities.

Gender-based marginalization is a global problem. It involves exclusion of girls and women

from a wide range of opportunities and social services. Gender disparities in education are a
good example. Girls in developing countries, especially those who live in remote and rural areas,
are excluded from formal education. The enrollment of girls in higher education is much lower
than that of boys. Women do not enjoy equal employment opportunities. They do not have equal
rights in terms of property ownership and inheritance. Women and girls are also vulnerable to
gender-based violence such as rape, early/child marriage, abduction/forced marriage, domestic
violence and female genital cutting/mutilation.

There are some customary practices that affect the health and wellbeing of girls and women.
These practices collectively are called harmful traditional practices (HTPs) which are widely
practiced in most regions of Ethiopia.

3.3. Marginalized occupational groups

According to anthropological findings, there are occupational marginalized groups in many parts
of Ethiopia. Marginalized occupational groups in our country include: tanners, potters, weavers
and ironsmiths. These craft-workers have different names in different parts of the country. Craft-
workers such as potters and tanners are considered as impure and excluded from social
interactions, ownership of economic resources and participation in associations and celebrations.

Marginalized occupation groups are people engaged in craftworks such as pottery, tannery, and
iron works. Craft-workers in Ethiopia produce several articles such as traditional hand-woven
clothes, household utensils, and farm tools. Crafts workers lead a life of paradoxes. They have
important contributions to their communities; however, they are marginalized by the dominant
and majority groups. For examples, weavers produce cultural clothes highly demanded by
thousands and millions of people. Many people use cultural clothes during annual celebrations,
religious holidays, weddings, culture days, and mourning. Despite their contributions, weavers
are marginalized from the wider society.

Ironsmiths are among occupational groups marginalized in many cultural setting in Ethiopia.
Ironsmiths make and repair iron articles without using machines. They contribute a lot especially

36
in rural areas. Ironsmiths serve rural communities by producing farming tools such as plough
shares, sickles, and hoes. Tanners make leather products that serve community members. Potters
produce pottery articles essential for food processing and serving and fetching water. Despite
their contributions, these craft-workers are considered inferior and marginalized from wide areas
of social interactions.

Type of marginalization Manifestations of marginalization

Spatial marginalization  Craft-workers settle/live on the outskirts of villages, near
to forests, on poor land, around steep slopes.
 They are segregated at market places (they sell their goods
at the outskirts of markets).
 When they walk along the road, they are expected to give
way for others and walk on the lower side of the road.
Economic marginalization  Craft-workers are excluded from certain economic
activities including production and exchanges. In some
cultures they are not allowed to cultivate crops.
 They have a limited access to land and land ownership.
Social marginalization  Craft-workers are excluded from intermarriage, they do not
share burial places with others; they are excluded from
membership of associations such as iddirs.
 When marginalized groups are allowed to participate in
social events, they must sit on the floor separately-
sometimes outside the house or near the door.
Cultural marginalization Cultural marginalization is manifested in negative stereotyping
such as the following:
 Occupational minorities are labelled as impure and
polluting; they are accused of eating animals that have died
without being slaughtered;
 Occupational minorities are also considered unreliable,
lacking morality, respect and shame.

Source: Alula Pankhurst and Getachew Assefa (2008)

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3.4. Age-based vulnerability

Age-based vulnerability is susceptibility of people, especially children and older people, to

different forms of attack, physical injuries and emotional harms. For example, children and older
people (people aged 60 and above) are exposed to possibilities of attack, harm and mistreatment
because of their age. As a result, vulnerable persons/groups need special attention, protection and
support. In this section, we discuss some example related to children and older people.

3.4.1 Children: Discrimination/vulnerability

Children are among vulnerable groups exposed to harm because of their age. Both boys and girls
are exposed to some harm and abuse in the hands of older people. But, girls are exposed to
double marginalization and discrimination because of the gender. Girls are exposed to HTPs like
female genital cutting. Girls are also exposed to early/child marriage in many parts of Ethiopia.

Early/child marriage: refers to marriage which involves girls below the age of 18. The
prevalence of it is declining in Ethiopia and African countries. But still it is widely practiced in
different regions of Ethiopia. Early marriage has the following major harmful consequences:

 Young girls enter into marital relation when they are too young to give their consent to
get married.
 Early marriage inhibits girls' personal development; it hinders girls‘ chance to education
and future professional development.
 Early marriage exposes young girls to sexual abuse by their older husbands.
 Early marriage leads to early pregnancies, which increases risks of diseases and
complications during delivery, fistula, and death of the mother or child.

Child marriage is an illegal practice according to the Criminal Code of Ethiopia.

Facts about early marriage in Ethiopia

Forty percent of all women who are in their early twenties married before the age of 18.
Eight per cent of girls aged 15-19 were married before they reach at the age of 15.
Uneducated girls, girls from poor family, and girls living in rural areas more likely
marry earlier that rich-family, urban and educated girls (Harper et al, 2018, page 44).

Read more on early marriage and its implications for the wellbeing of girls.

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Factors encouraging early marriage: Social norms and economic factors are the two major
drivers of the practice.

Social norms: Social norms contribute a lot for the continuation of early marriage in many parts
of the world. Chastity of girls is one of the social norms that influence parents and relatives to
protecting girls from pre-marital sex. The value attached to virginity is another driver of early
marriage. Girl‘s reputation and family social status are associated with sexual purity of girls.
Community members influence unmarried teen-age girls to get married as early as possible.
They do this through social pressure including insulting unmarried young girls. Komoker, an
Amharic term, is the widely used insult to ridicule girls considered to be late to get married.

Economic factors are among the major factors that drive child marriage. In many areas of
Ethiopia marriage provides economic security for young girls. Hence, parents, in some cases
girls, support early marriage for economic benefits such as access to land and other resources.
Parents‘ desire to get a good husband for their daughter is also another reason.

3.4.2. Marginalization of older persons

Age-based marginalization also affects older people. ‗Older people‘ refers to adults with the age
of 60 and above. The number of older people is increasing globally. According to the estimation
of the United Nations (2009), the number of older people will increase to 2 billion by 2050.
Eighty percent of the 2 billion older persons would live in low and middle-income countries.
This means Africa would have a large number of older adults after 30 years. Ethiopia, the second
populous country in Africa, would also have millions of older persons after three decades.

People‘s attitude towards older persons is changing over time in Ethiopia and all over the world.
Older men and women have been respected across Ethiopian cultures. Older persons have been
considered as custodians of tradition, culture, and history. The role of older persons crucial in
mentoring younger people, resolving disputes, and restoring peace across Ethiopian cultures.
Situations are changing as family structures and living patterns are changing over time. Rural-
urban migration, changes in values and life style, education and new employment opportunities
lead to so many changes.

Ageism is a widely observed social problem in the world. It refers to stereotyping, prejudice, and
discrimination against people based on their age. Older people are facing various problems as a

39
result of modernization, globalization, and urbanization. Older people are exposed to social
exclusion because of their lower social and economic status. In most cases, older people are
excluded from social, cultural, political and economic interactions in their communities. Older
persons are marginalized because they are considered as social burden rather than social assets.
Communities do not provide older persons with opportunities to contribute to their communities.

3.5. Religious and Ethnic Minorities

Religious and ethnic minorities groups also face different forms of marginalization. There are
several examples of marginalization and discrimination targeting religious and ethnic minorities
in the world. Let us mention two examples.

The Jewish people suffered from discrimination and persecution in different parts of the
world. They were targets of extermination in Germany and other Western European
countries because of their identity.

Muslim Rohingyas are among the most marginalized and persecuted people in the world.
In recent years, more than half-a-million Rohingyas fled from their homes in Nyanmar to
neighboring countries such as Bangladesh.

These are among the widely known examples of discrimination against religious and ethnic
minorities. The problem is not limited to specific areas, regions or countries. Although the level
of the problem varies in different contexts, religious and ethnic minorities face different forms of
discrimination in many parts of the world.

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 Unit Four
4. Identity, Inter-Ethnic Relations and Multiculturalism in Ethiopia

4.1. Identity, Ethnicity and Race: Identification and Social Categorization

4.1.1. Ethnicity: What’s in a name?

After the end of the second world war, words like ―ethnicity‖, ―ethnic groups‖ ―ethnic conflict‖
and ―nationalism‖ have become quite common terms in the English language, and they keep
cropping up in the press, in TV news and in political programs. During the 1980s and early
1990s, we have witnessed an explosion in the growth of scholarly publications on ethnicity,
ethnic phenomenon and nationalism across different disciplines, within social sciences.

An important reason for the current academic interest in ethnicity and nationalism is the fact that
such phenomena have become so visible in many societies that it has become impossible to
ignore them. In the early twentieth century, many social theorists held that ethnicity and
nationalism would decrease in importance and eventually vanish as a result of modernization,
industrialization and individualism. This never came about. On the contrary, ethnicity and
nationalism have grown in political importance in the world, particularly since WWII.

Thirty-five of the thirty-seven major armed conflicts in the world in 1991 were internal conflicts,
and most of them - from Sri Lanka to Northern Ireland - could plausibly be described as ethnic
conflicts. In many parts of the world, further, nation-building - the creation of political cohesion
and national identity in former colonies - is high on the political agenda.

Ethnic and national identities also become strongly pertinent following the continuous influx of
labor migrants and refugees to Europe and North America, which has led to the establishment of
new, permanent ethnic minorities in these areas. During the same period, indigenous populations
have organized themselves politically, and demand that their ethnic identities and territorial
entitlements should be recognized by the State.

At one extreme of the continent, the erstwhile Soviet Union has split into over a dozen ethnically
based states. With the disappearance of the strong Socialist state in the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe, issues of nationhood and minority problems are emerging with unprecedented

41
force. On the other extreme of the continent, the situation seems to be the opposite, as the nation-
states of Western Europe are moving towards a closer economic, political and possibly cultural
integration. But here, too, national and ethnic identities have become important issues in recent
years. Many people fear the loss of their national or ethnic identity as a result of a tight European
integration, whereas others consider the possibilities for a pan-European identity to replace the
ethnic and national ones. The process reveled how personal identities are intimately linked with
political processes and that social identities, e.g. as Danes or Europeans, are not given once, and
for all, but are negotiated over. Both of these insights are crucial to the study of ethnicity. The
same is true for Ethiopia, where issue of ethnic and national identities is contested and ethnicity
has become the official organizing principle of the state since 1991.

4.1.2. Conceptualizing Ethnicity –What’s it?

The English origin of the term ‗ethnicity‘ is connected to the term ―ethnic,‖– which is much
older and has been in use since the middle Ages. The word is derived from the Greek term
‗ethnos‟ (which in turn, derived from the Latin word ‗ethnikos‟), which literally means ―a group
of people bound together by the same manners, customs or other distinctive features‖. In the
context of ancient Greek, the term refers to a collectivity of humans lived and acted together -
which is typically translated today as ‗people‘ or ‗nation‘ (not political unit per say, but group of
people with shared communality). Contrary to its literal meaning however, ancient Greeks were
using the term ‗ethnos‟ in practice to refer to non-Hellenic, people who are non-Greek and
considered as second-class peoples. Likewise, in early England, it used to refer to someone who
was neither Christian nor Jewish (to refer to heathen or pagan).

Quite suddenly, with little comment or ceremony, ethnicity has achieved a nomni present status.
Even a brief glance through titles of books and monographs over the past few years indicates a
steadily accelerating acceptance and application of the terms ―ethnicity‖ and ―ethnic‖ to refer to
what was before often subsumed under ‗culture‘, ‗cultural‘, or ‘tribal‘. New journals have
appeared using the terms in their titles, and special programs of ethnic studies are showing up in
university catalogs. Almost any cultural-social unit, indeed any term describing particular
structures of continuing social relations, or sets of regularized events now can be referred to as
an "ethnic" this or that. This can be seen in the proliferation of titles dealing with ethnic groups,
ethnic identity, ethnic boundaries, ethnic conflict, ethnic cooperation or competition, ethnic

42
politics, ethnic stratification, ethnic integration, ethnic consciousness, and so on. Name it and
there is in all likelihood, someone who has written on it using ―ethnic‖ or ―ethnicity‖ qualifiers
to describe his or her special approach to the topic.

Nevertheless, most scholars who uses ―ethnicity‖ find definition either unnecessary or they are
reluctant to provide general framework for the concept. Isajiw looked at 65 studies of ethnicity in
anthropology, and sociology and found only 13 that defined the term. Writers generally take it
for granted that the term refers to a set of named groupings, singled out by the researcher as
ethnic units. Membership in such group is then shown to have an effect on, or correlation with,
one or more dependent variable(s). In this sense, ethnicity is widely used as a significant
structural phenomenon. But that is hardly a definition.

So it is important to be clear about what our subject – ethnicity - is and about what it is not. None
of the founding fathers of anthropology and sociology - with the partial exception of Max Weber
granted ethnicity much attention. Max Weber, in his work entitled ―Economy and Society‖, first
published in 1922 (1978:385-98), provided the early and influential sociological conceptions of
ethnicity and ethnic group. According to Weber, an ―ethnic group‖ is based on the belief in
common descent shared by its members, extending beyond kinship, political solidarity vis-a-vis
other groups, and common customs, language, religion, values, morality, and etiquette. In other
words, ethnic groups are those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common
descent because of similarities or physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of
colonization and migration. It does not matter whether or not an objective blood relationship
exists, but whether it is believed to exist.
Perhaps the most significant part of Weber‘s argument is that: ―ethnic membership does not
constitute a group; it only facilitates group formation of any kind, particularly in the political
sphere. On the other hand, it is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially
organized that inspires the belief in common ethnicity‖ (1978: 389).

Weber seems to be suggesting that the belief in common ancestry is likely to be a consequence
of collective political action rather than its cause; people come to see themselves as belonging
together – coming from a common background – as a consequence of acting together. Collective
interests thus, do not simply reflect or follow from similarities and differences between people;
the pursuit of collective interests does, however, encourage ethnic identification. In terms of

43
collective action, this form of ethnic communality is a form of monopolistic social closure: it
defines membership, eligibility and access.

Any cultural trait in common can provide a basis for and resources for ethnic closure: language,
ritual, economic way of life, lifestyle more generally, and the division of labor, are all likely
possibilities in this respect. Shared language and ritual are particularly implicated in ethnicity:
mutual intelligibility of the behavior of others is a fundamental pre-requisite for any group, as is
the shared sense of what is ‗correct and proper‘ which constitute individual ‗honor and dignity‘.
By this token, an ethnic group is a particular form of status group. Finally, Weber argues that
since the possibilities for collective action rooted in ethnicity are ‗indefinite‘, the ethnic group,
and its close relative the nation, cannot easily be precisely defined for sociological purposes.

As Weber (1968) emphasized, it is the effectiveness of social action and, above all, a political
aspect of group action that ‗inspires belief in common ethnicity‘ and transforms group
membership into a political community. For Max Weber, an ethnic group is based, on the belief
in common descent shared by its members because of similarities or physical type or of customs
or both, or because of memories of colonization &migration. And ―it does not matter whether or
not an objective blood relationship exists‖, but believed to exist.

The next great contribution to our understanding of ethnicity comes from the influential works of
the Norwegian anthropologist, named Frederik Barth (1969). Barth in an exceptionally brilliant
„Introduction‟ part of a collection of scholarly work entitled ―Ethnic Groups and
Boundaries”(1969),where he was the editor, provided nothing short of a Copernican revolution
in the study of ethnicity – in and outside anthropology. Hence, current anthropological
conventional wisdom about ethnicity for the larger part is stems from this influential work of
Barth. In his introduction to the collection of ―Ethnic Groups and Boundaries”, Barth (1969),
outlined in detail a model of ethnicity.

Barth began with what actors believe or think: ascriptions and self-ascriptions. A categorical
ascription is an ethnic ascription when it classifies a person in terms of his basic, most general
identity, presumptively determined by his origin and background. To the extent that actors use
ethnic identities to categorize themselves and others for purposes of interaction, they form
ethnic groups in this organizational sense.

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Barth focused not upon the cultural characteristics of ethnic groups but upon relationships of
cultural differentiation, and specifically upon contact between collectivities thus differentiated,
'us' and 'them' (Eriksen, 2002). Barth's emphasis was not so much upon the substance or content
of ethnicity, what he called the 'cultural stuff', as upon the social processes, which produce and
reproduce - which organize, if you like-boundaries of identification and differentiation between
ethnic collectivities. As illustrated by Barth, it is important to recognize that although ethnic
categories take cultural differences into account:

we can assume no simple one-to-one relationship between ethnic units and cultural
similarities and differences. The features that are taken into account are not the sum of
'objective' differences, but only those which the actors themselves regard as
significant…not only do ecological variations mark and exaggerate differences; some
cultural features are used by the actors as signals and emblems of differences, others
are ignored, and in some relationships radical differences are played down and denied.

The cultural contents of ethnic dichotomies would seem analytically to be of two orders: a) overt
signals or signs - the diacritical features that people look for and exhibit to show identity, often
such as dress, language, house-form or general style of life and ii) basic value orientations: the
standards of morality and excellence by which performance is judged. Since belonging to an
ethnic category implies being a certain kind of person, having that basic identity implies a claim
to be judged and to judge oneself by those standards that are relevant to that identity.

Before Barth, cultural difference was traditionally explained from the inside out – social groups
possess different cultural characteristics, which make them unique and distinct (common
language, lifestyle, descent, religion, physical markers, history, eating habits, etc.). Culture was
perceived as something relatively or firmly stable, persistent and intact. Cultural difference was
understood in terms of a group‘s property (i.e., to be Gamo is to be in possession of a distinct
culture to that of the Wolayita). But Barth (1969), Cultural difference per se does not create
ethnic collectivities. It is the social contact with others that leads to definition and categorization
of ‗us‘ and ‗them‘; hence cultural difference between two groups is not the decisive feature of
ethnicity. Indeed, ethnicity is essentially an aspect of a relationship, not a property of a group.

Nonetheless, Barth turned the traditional understanding of cultural difference on its head. He
defined and explained ethnicity from the outside in: it is not the ‗possession‟ of cultural

45
characteristics that makes social groups distinct but rather it is the social interaction with other
groups that makes that difference possible, visible and socially meaningful. Shared culture is, in
this model, best understood as generated in and by processes of ethnic boundary maintenance,
rather than the other way round: the production and reproduction of difference vis-a-vis external
others is what creates the image of similarity internally, vis-a-vis each other.

In Barth‘s own words: ‗the critical focus of investigation from this point of view becomes the
ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses‘ (1969: 15). The
difference is created, developed and maintained only through interaction with others (i.e.,
Frenchness is created and becomes culturally and politically meaningful only through the
encounter with Englishness, Germaness, Danishness, etc.). Hence, the focus in the study of
ethnic difference has shifted from the study of its contents (i.e., the structure of the language,
the form of the particular costumes, the nature of eating habits) to the study of cultural
boundaries and social interaction. The boundaries to which we must give our attention are of
course social boundaries, though they may have territorial counterparts. If a group maintains its
identity when members interact with others, this entails criteria for determining membership and
ways of signaling membership and exclusion.

Barth‘s work has transformed and shifted the study of ethnic difference from the study of
cultural contents (language, religion, and customs) to the study of the interaction processes in
which cultural characteristics are ―picked up‖ as markers of differences in the interaction
process. Cultural differences per se do not create ethnic collectivities: The social contact with
others leads to the definition and categorization of an ―us‖ and ―them‖.

For instance, two distinctive, endogamous groups may well have widely different languages,
religious beliefs and even technologies, but that does not entail that there is an ethnic relationship
between them. For ethnicity to come about, the groups must have a minimum of contact between
them, and they must entertain ideas of each other as being culturally different from themselves.
If these conditions are not fulfilled, there is no ethnicity, for ethnicity is essentially an aspect of a
relationship, not a property of a group. Conversely, some groups may seem culturally similar, yet
there can be a socially highly relevant (and even volatile) inter-ethnic relationship between them.

Furthermore, Barth‘s research established a foundation for understanding ethnicity in

universalist rather than in particularist terms. Since culture and social groups emerge only

46
through interaction with others, then ethnicity cannot be confined to minority groups only. We
cannot study minority ethnic groups without at the same time studying the majority ethnicity.

Generally speaking, although Barth was arguably the most systematic model in depth and detail,
the most securely grounded in wider theoretical arguments about social forms and social
processes, and has certainly been the most influential; Barth was not alone in establishing the
current anthropological understanding of ethnicity.

Reflecting, on the one hand, the practical ethnographic concern with the everyday lives of real
people, i.e., their ‗actually existing‘ social relationships (Radcliffe-Brown, 1952:190), and on the
other, the pursuit of understanding, advocated by Weber and Simmel, Clifford Geertz has
elegantly defined ethnicity as the 'world of personal identity collectively ratified and publicly
expressed' and 'socially ratified personal identity' (1973:268, 309).

In spite of the difference in scholarly views of ethnicity among anthropologists, the 'basic social
anthropological model of ethnicity' can be summarized as follows:

 Ethnicity is a matter of cultural differentiation - although, to reiterate the main theme of

social identity (Jenkins 2004), identification always involves a dialectical interplay
between similarity and difference.

 Ethnicity is centrally a matter of shared meanings - what we conventionally call 'culture'

- but is also produced and reproduced during interaction.

 Ethnicity is no more fixed or unchanging than the way of life of which it is an aspect, or
the situations in which it is produced and reproduced.

 Ethnicity, as an identification, is collective and individual, externalized in social

interaction and the categorization of others, and internalized in personal self-
identification.

Culture is conceived here partially in the traditional anthropological sense as involving a total
way of life. The total way of life, however, does not necessarily mean simply a set of distinct
everyday customs, although it may include these. Rather, it refers to a unique historical group
experience. Culture is in essence a system of encoding such experience into a set of symbolic
patterns. It does not matter how different the elements of one culture are from another culture. A
distinct culture is a manifestation of a group's distinct historical experience. Its product is a

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sense of unique peoplehood. Ethnicity is not a single unified social phenomenon but a ―family,‖
of related but analytically distinct phenomena. The foundations of ethnicity, the ―markers‖ of
ethnicity, the history of ethnicity, the aims and goals of ethnicity—these vary from case to case‖.

The emphasis on culture as the point of departure for our understanding of the nature of ethnicity
is not intended to mean that members of an ethnic group must always share one and the same
culture to the exclusion of any other. Rather, it is intended to mean that persons who include
themselves in an ethnicity would have a relation to a group who either now or at some point in
the past has shared a unique culture.

4.3. Ethnic Groups and Ethnic Identity

4.3.1. Ethnic Group

The term ‗ethnic group‘ is also attached with various meanings as ethnicity. Scholars have been
trying to conceptualize it from different perspectives and as a result, different definitions have
been proposed to define ‗ethnic group‘. Anderson (1983), in his part described ethnic groups as
―an imagined community‖ that possesses a ―character and quality‖ (Anderson, 1983).
Schermerhorn (1996), on the other hand, conceptualize ethnic group as a unit of population
having unique characteristics in relation with others, binding with common language, myth of
origin, and history of ethnic allegiance (1996).

Scholars mainly use it to explain contact and inter-relationship between groups. Eriksen states
that since ethnic categories created out of the very contact between groups, dealing with ethnic
groups in total isolation is as absurd as to speak of the sound from one hand clapping (2002).
Another scholars Barth (1969), define ethnic groups as a self-defined group based on subjective
factors and/or fundamental cultural values chosen by members from their past history or present
existing conditions in which members are aware of-and-in contact with other ethnic groups.

Ethnic groups constitute an identity as defined by outsiders who do not belong to the group but
identify it as different from their own groups and by ―insiders‖ who belong to the same group.
This generally becomes the basis of mobilizing group‘s consciousness and solidarity and which
in certain situation result in political activities (Kasfir, 1976).

By considering the various definitions provided, Hutchinson and Smith‘s (1996) identified six
main features that the definition of an ethnic group, predominantly consists. This includes;

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 A common proper name, to identify and express the “essence” of the community;
A myth of common ancestry that includes the idea of common origin in time and place
and that gives an ethnic group a sense of fictive kinship;
Shared historical memories, or better, shared memories of a common past or pasts,
including heroes, events, and their commemoration;
One or more elements of common culture, which need not be specified but normally,
include religion, customs, and language;
A link with a homeland, not necessarily its physical occupation by the ethnic group, only
its symbolic attachment to the ancestral land, as with diaspora peoples; and
A sense of solidarity on the part of at least some sections of the ethnic‟s population
(Hutchinson and Smith, 1996:6-7).

4.3.2. Ethnic Identity

Definitions of ethnic identity vary according to the underlying theory embraced by researchers‘
and scholars‘ intent on resolving its conceptual meanings. The fact that there is no widely agreed
upon definition of ethnic identity is indicative of the confusion surrounding the topic.

Typically, ethnic identity is an affiliative construct, where an individual is viewed by themselves

and by others as belonging to a particular ethnic or cultural group. An individual can choose to
associate with a group especially if other choices are available (i.e., the person is of mixed ethnic
or racial heritage). Affiliation can be influenced by racial, natal, symbolic, and cultural factors
(Cheung, 1993). Racial factors involve the use of physiognomic and physical characteristics,
natal factors refer to "homeland" (ancestral home) or origins of individuals, their parents and kin,
and symbolic factors include those factors that typify or exemplify an ethnic group (e.g.,
holidays, foods, clothing, artifacts, etc.). Symbolic ethnic identity usually implies that individuals
choose their identity, however, to some extent the cultural elements of the ethnic or racial group
have a modest influence on their behavior (Kivisto & Nefzger, 1993).

On the individual level, ethnicity is a social-psychological process, which gives an individual a

sense of belonging and identity. It is, of course, one of a number of social phenomena, which
produce a sense of identity. Ethnic identity can be defined as a manner in which persons, on
account of their ethnic origin, locate themselves psychologically in relation to one or more social
systems, and in which they perceive others as locating them in relation to those systems. By

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ethnic origin is meant either that a person has been socialized in an ethnic group or that his or her
ancestors, real or symbolic, have been members of the group. The social systems may be one's
ethnic community or society at large, or other ethnic communities and other societies or groups,
or a combination of all these (Isajiw, 1990).

Locating oneself in relation to a community and society is not only a psychological phenomenon,
but also a social phenomenon in the sense that the internal psychological states express
themselves objectively in external behavior patterns that come to be shared by others. Thus,
individuals locate themselves in one or another community internally by states of mind and
feelings, such as self-definitions or feelings of closeness, and externally by behavior appropriate
to these states of mind and feelings. Behavior according to cultural patterns is thus, an expression
of identity and can be studied as an indication of its character.

We can thus distinguish external and internal aspects of ethnic identity. External aspects refer to
observable behavior, both cultural and social, such as (1), speaking an ethnic language,
practicing ethnic traditions, (2), participation in ethnic personal networks, such as family and
friendships, (3), participation in ethnic institutional organizations, such as churches, schools,
enterprises, media (4), participation in ethnic voluntary associations, such as clubs, 'societies,'
youth organizations and (5) participation in functions sponsored by ethnic organizations such as
picnics, concerts, public lectures, rallies, dances.

The internal aspects of ethnic identity refer to images, ideas, attitudes, and feelings. These, of
course, are interconnected with the external behavior. But, it should not be assumed that,
empirically, the two types are always dependent upon each other. Rather, they may vary
independently, as for example, a third-generation person may retain a higher degree of internal
than of external aspects. We can distinguish at least three types of internal aspects of identity: (1)
cognitive, (2) moral, and (3) affective.

4.4. Race –The Social Construction of Racial Identity

Race is an elusive concept like ethnicity –used in a variety of contexts and meanings; sometimes
interchangeably with ethnicity, where the relationship between the two concept remain complex.
When first appeared, ethnicity/ethnic identity was used in synonym with race or racial identity,
which complicated their relation. Moreover, the boundary between the two concepts is
historically variable; what was 'racial' before 1945 may be more publicly acceptable as 'ethnic'
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today. This sub-section will provide a discussion about race/racial identity as a social
construction of group categorization and identification, and come up with the significant
distinctions among the races and the major difference between race/racial identity and
ethnicity/ethnic identity.

The Kinds of Humanity: Human Physical Variation

People come in many colors and shapes; people of the Mediterranean, for example, are obviously
darker-skinned than those of Scandinavia, and natives of the Arctic are shorter and stockier than
the tall, lean Samburu of East Africa. Why is this? How did these variations come about, and
what do they mean for humanity as a species? The answer comes from the study of human
biology by physical anthropologists. In this section we will see how human populations have
adapted to their varying environments by the same evolutionary process that shapes all living
things from the perspective of race.

Racial Types - Anthropological Perspectives

Like all living things with sensory input, humans have to classify their perceptions into some
kind of order: These things go with these others but don‘t belong in this group. Some people
have darker skin, so they‘re in the ―darker skin‖ category. Obviously, not all human beings look
the same, so humans have spent some time putting people of different colors, body shapes, and
so on into different categories sometimes called races. Unfortunately, this tendency has had some
very bad consequences for millions of human beings over the centuries.

Biologically speaking, a race is a group of organisms of the same species that share similar
physical (and genetic) attributes and specific geographic regions. In short, they‘re subdivisions of
a single species- meaning they can mate and have offspring that are healthy enough to have their
own offspring-exhibiting some characteristics reflecting their geographical origins.

Just like any other living thing, human beings adapt to their environments through an
evolutionary process. Human species adapts mainly through cultural means; that is, we survive
our environments not because we‘ve adapted to them biologically, but with artifacts and complex
behavior. Human bodies (human beings) have adapted to certain conditions over time.

Adaptation is can be understood as a process (behavioural and/or biological) that increases the
likelihood of survival for an organism. An adaptation can be a mutation that confers an

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advantage. In humans, adaptations include complex behavior, such as making tools. These
behaviors aren‘t passed on genetically but rather culturally.

Some of these bodily adaptations are pretty easily visible, and some are only visible when you
look very closely at the genes. Skin color—one of the most visible human characteristics — is a
good example of adaptation to a particular environment. The darkest skin appears in populations
originating in tropical zones, such as Africa and Asia. The lightest skin is traditionally found in
northern Europe because over time, natural selection favored darker skins in areas that received
extensive and more intensive sunlight, because individuals with lighter skin in these areas were
more prone to skin cancers. Darker skin is an adaptation to the geographical conditions of Africa.

What‘s the adaptive value of lighter skin? It has to do with vitamin D, of all things. Vitamin D is
a nutrient that helps human bones form properly. Humans naturally produce Vitamin D through
the skin when they‘re exposed to sunlight, but cloudier parts of the world — like northern
Europe — are exposed to much less sunlight than regions in the tropics, where the species began.
As early human populations were expanding into northern Europe around 40,000 years ago,
those individuals with darker skin were less able to manufacture Vitamin D and probably
experienced a much lower birthrate than those populations with lighter skin. Lighter skin is an
adaptation to the geographical conditions of Europe because over time, the prehistoric colonists
of Europe who happened to be born with lighter skin had more offspring, who themselves carried
the genes for lighter skin. Biological adaptations aren‘t instantaneous. They take place over the
span of generations, so an African moving to Europe won‘t evolve lighter skin, nor will an
European travelling to Africa evolve darker skin.

Another biological adaptation in human beings is the difference of stature between arctic (such
as Inuit) and East African (such as Maasai) people. In biology, Bergmann’s rule indicates that in
colder regions, warm-blooded animals will have stockier bodies than their counterparts from
warmer regions, because stockier bodies are more efficient at retaining body heat. In the cold
polar regions, the Inuit have a short and stocky build; the Maasai of East Africa have taller and
more slender bodies that don‘t have to retain so much heat — they actually have to dump excess
heat in their hot environment, which is facilitated by their body shape. Body stature in these
cases is an adaptation to the geographical conditions of hot African and the cold Arctic.

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What Anthropologists can say for sure about Human Races?

So do human races exist? Very strictly speaking, yes. Homo sapiens sapiens does feature
geographically based differences within the species. But there are two very important points.

First, these genetic differences don‘t mean a lot, biologically. Because all healthy humans can
mate and have healthy offspring, we‘re all in Homo sapiens sapiens, biologically speaking.
Don‘t let anyone tell you different. Not only is it inaccurate to say ―the female species‖ when
talking about significant sex differences between males and females, but it‘s also inaccurate to
say ―the African race‖ or the ―European race‖ when speaking of deep differences in these
peoples. A look at the genes shows no significant species-level differences — only very minor
visible ones such as skin color, shape of nose, or hair texture. Biologically speaking, though,
these differences aren‘t important. For most physical anthropologists (who‘ve spent the most
time closely examining human biology), race is nearly meaningless when applied to humanity.

Rather than talk about races, physical anthropologists more commonly talk today of ancestry, a
more general term that recognizes the reality of some geographically specific human adaptations
but doesn‘t turn them into loaded, black-and-white races. Ancestry may be important, for
example, when considering someone‘s genetic health because different human populations have
developed slightly different genetic characteristics over time.

Second - and most important is that cultural behavior isn’t genetically linked to those
geographical differences. This disconnect is one of anthropology‘s most important discoveries
and lessons for humanity. People from Scandinavia aren‘t reserved - or whatever other
behavioral trait you may apply to them - because it‘s in their genes to be so. It‘s not. Most of
human behavior isn‘t biologically determined or filtered in through the natural environment -
most of it is culturally learned. An infant from Japan can be raised in the Kalahari of Southern
Africa and won‘t automatically remove his shoes when going into a home unless his culture
specifically teaches him to do so. Like any human can acquire any language, any infant can
acquire any culture; it‘s culture that really drives behavior, not the genes. The ancient belief that
human races have innate behavioral traits is simply wrong.

One of the main reasons the race concept really doesn‘t apply to humans is that defining human
races is almost impossible: To what race do you assign a person born from a Native American
and a native African marriage? Do you create a new race in this case? Although some of these

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designations do exist, to come up with a race for every possible combination of ancestries would
be an infinite job. And what‘s ―black‖ or ―white‖? Is a Greek person black or white? Of course,
they‘re in between. Assigning people to a race based on skin color becomes an exercise in
holding up paint chips to the skin.

The History of Human Racial Typing

Like animals, humans have classifying their neighbors in various ways for a very long time.
Some of the first records of humans classifying others as certain ―types‖ come from ancient
Egypt, where by 1350 BC you can see records of them classifying humans by skin color:

Egyptians were red-skinned, people south of Egypt were black-skinned, those living north of the
Mediterranean Sea were white-skinned, and people to the east were yellow-skinned. By the 16th
century, during the Age of Discovery, Europeans voyaging around the world were encountering
many previously unknown peoples and developing racial classifications of their own. Because
skin color was so noticeable, many racial classifications were based only on that factor.
Additionally, these unknown people weren‘t Christian and didn‘t share European culture and
values, so the Europeans labeled them Savages. In fact, they thought they could use racial type as
an indicator of just how Savage a person was. The less European-looking is the more Savage.
Though most have ditched this concept today, many racial supremacists still believe that cultural
behavior correlates with skin color, nose shape, hair texture or what you have.

Some naturalists in the 16th through 19th centuries proposed that savages were even a different
species than white Europeans, saying that they shouldn‘t even be considered human. This
classification made persecution and enslavement of different peoples purely because of how they
looked. Early attempts by Europeans to categorize people into racial schemes were extremely
biased and hierarchical, associating morality and intelligence with skin color and other physical
attributes. These schemes always placed Europeans at the top of the scale, and the successively
darker-skinned peoples at the bottom.

By the mid-1800s, naturalists began using a method of describing the shape of the head called
the cephalic index, a ratio measurement of the length and width of the head. Dolichocephalic
peoples had long and narrow heads (like most northern Europeans), and brachycephalic peoples
tended to have broad heads — like many southern Europeans. Not surprisingly, this
classification scheme led to many arguments about which peoples were superior to the others.

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The root problem of all this flailing around at the identification of human types was biological
determinism the idea that physical traits were linked to behavior. Many thought traits like
intellect, values and morals were products of one‘s race. Now most people know better, although
some people still wear sheets and call for ―racial purity,‖ an impossible and destructive idea.

This wrong idea, including early anthropologists, is derived from the application of Darwin‘s
principles of biological evolution to societies. This led to a concept known as social Darwinism,
the idea that as societies and nations evolved and competed, the morally superior societies would
prevail as the less-moral, ―savage‖ societies were weeded out, and that this was all natural and
good. Around this time debates about the superiority or inferiority of particular groups continued
and some began to fear that civilized (meaning northern European Christian) society was slowly
being destroyed by ―unfit‖ peoples who, for one reason or another, were not being weeded out.

With behavioral characteristics ―linked‖ to genetic characteristics in the minds of many

(including scientists), some in the 19th and early 20th centuries even advocated for state
regulation of marriages, family size, and whether to allow an individual to reproduce. This
practice became known as eugenics, and the Nazis took it to a terrible extreme during World
War II. In Germany, the Nazi party began to systematically kill those members of society that it
considered inferior to the northern-European Christian ideal they held. Using eugenics as the
basis for its acts, the Nazi party killed millions of Jewish people, Gypsies and others it
considered inferior in an attempt to create a master race.

The problems with the concept of a master race — aside from the obvious moral issues
surrounding eugenics — is that biological variation is necessary for the health of a population.
Basically, if all members of a population are the same, the population has no buffer against a
particularly lethal or catastrophic disease or any other major change in the species‘ selective
environment. If everyone is the same, everyone is susceptible to the same potential disaster. For
this reason, many biologists measure the overall health of a species by its very genetic diversity.
So even if a master race were possible, and one could (and would want to) manage to prevent
any interbreeding, the end result would be a genetically uniform and genetically vulnerable
population. The idea of a master race is therefore suicidal.

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The Grand Illusion: Race, turns out, is arbitrary

Over the years, various anthropologists have attempted to classify the human species into various
races, such as Caucasian, Black African, Asian, and so on. The problem is that the physical traits
used to identify which group an individual belonged in aren‘t binary opposites like black or
white with no middle ground. They‘re continuous traits, meaning that a whole spectrum exists
between ―black‖ and ―white‖ skin designations.
Any attempt to classify human races raises a number of questions. Although Asians look pretty
clearly different from Europeans in some respects, what do you do with people who look partly
Asian and partly European? And does ―European‖ end in the Middle East, where some African
traits are present? Where does Africa even begin, genetically speaking? Who‘s going to draw up
the lines between ―black‖ and ―white‖? One thorough study by Harvard Anthropologist
Lewontin in 1972 concluded that ―Human racial classification is of no social value and is
positively destructive of social and human relations.‖ For most professional anthropologists
today, human ―race‖ is an outdated concept. For biomedical reasons the reality of genetic
ancestry can be important, but color coded races with behavioral traits are basically arbitrary.

Why is everyone Different? Human Cultural Diversity/Variation

Although all humans are of the same species, they don‘t all act the same; human behavior varies
tremendously worldwide. If race doesn‘t control a person‘s characteristics, what does account for
human behavioral variation? The answer is culture. Cultures differ because people live in
different ecological, economic, social or other conditions. For example, the culture of the
Amazonian foragers have certain characteristics, and they value certain things and act certain
ways, because they have evolved in a particular ecological environment, different from highland
Scots, whose own culture is an adaptation to their unique environment. This difference is
ultimately why human behavior isn‘t the same worldwide. Human cultures have been evolving
for thousands of years, in the modern age, with mass communication and mass movement of
peoples from one environment and culture to another, culture has changed very quickly.

Racial Classification: A Short Historical Overview

For some time, it was common to divide humanity into four main races, which recognized both
on the scientific and folk notions of the concept. In this regard, race was used both as a system of
human classification and social stratification as follows:

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 Europeaeus: White; muscular; hair – long, flowing; eyes blue – Acute, inventive, gentle,
and governed by laws.

Americanus: Reddish; erect; hair – black, straight, thick; wide nostrils – Obstinate,
merry, free, and regulated by custom.

Asiaticus: Sallow (yellow); hair black; eyes dark – Haughty, avaricious, severe, and
ruled by opinions.

Africanus: Black; hair – black, frizzled; skin silky; nose flat; lips tumid – Crafty,
indolent, negligent, and governed by caprice or the will of their masters.

The folk notions of the concept perceived race as a non-overlapping and distinguishable
categories of people; which is fixed and/or natural in its character. These, ―folk‖ and ―scientific‖
notions of race however, begin to diverge in the early 20th century. Modern genetics abandon
race in biomedical research and tends not to speak of races due to two main reasons:

1. There has been so much interbreeding between human populations that it would be
meaningless to talk of fixed boundaries between races
2. The distribution of hereditary physical traits does not follow clear boundaries.
Genetic studies concerning human variation show that humans are more than 99% genetically
alike. Surprisingly, of the 1% variation 85% is found within any human population or group
(such as town/village/tribal or ethnic group), 10% is between any two groups, even those that
are geographically close and 5% is between geographically distant groups such as two
towns/villages from different continents. Thus, dramatic genetic discontinuities are not found
among modern human population and even the little variation, far more within-group than
between group. In other words, there lack a unifying genetic essence for people of the same race;
people of the same race are not necessarily ―closely related‖ when compared to people of
different races. Biologically speaking, there is no such thing as a ―pure‖ race and race has no
scientific validity to be used as means of group identification/categorization. As a result, use of
race as system of human categorization lacks scientific validity.

Nevertheless, when used as a social construction of human categorization ‗Race‘ is human

groups defined by itself or others as distinct by virtue of perceived common physical
characteristics that are held to be inherent. In this sense of the concept, race is a group of

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human beings socially defined on the basis of physical traits. Racism builds on the assumption
that personality is somehow linked with hereditary characteristics and in this way race may
assume sociological importance even if it has no "objective" existence. Social scientists who
study race relations need not themselves believe in the existence of race, since their object of
study is the social and cultural relevance of the notion that race exists.

In such contexts however, the question remains do race/racial relation or identity

distinguishable from ethnicity/ethnic relations or identity? Different anthropologists and other
scholars have different views on this.

Scholars like Pierre van den Berghe (1983) other than differentiating the two concepts, regard
"race" relations as a special case of ethnicity. He describes race as “a special marker of
ethnicity‖ that uses biological characteristics as an ethnic marker. In other words ‗race‘ is a social
construct, where phenotypic attributes are popularly used to denote in-groups from out-groups.
Race is viewed as a ‗socially defined group which sees itself and is seen by others as being
phenotypically different from other such groups‟.

Contrary to this, other scholars (e.g., Max Weber 1992, John Rex 1973, Michael Banton 1967,
and Gerald Berreman 1981) argued that while there is much overlap between race and ethnicity,
they are distinct concepts and so that they need to be distinguished. In this regard, Max Weber
(1922), differentiated between racial and ethnic identity by proposing that a blood relationship
was necessary for racial identification but not for ethnic identification.

John Rex in his part explained that ―a far wider set of situations are based upon cultural
differentiation of groups in the form ethnic groups than those which are commonly called racial
groups‖. For Rex, ethnicity is still a wider classificatory or organizational principle than 'race',
and it remains true that few ethnic conflicts are as bloody as 'racial' ones.
In more specific terms, Gerald Berreman (1981) provides his own distinctions between ethnicity
and race. He differentiated ethnicity from race in that racial stratification is associated with
birth-ascribed status based on physical and cultural characteristics defined by outside groups.
Ethnicity is also ascribed at birth, but the ethnic group normally defines its cultural
characteristics itself. Thus, racial categorizations, which are defined by the outsider, are
normally laced with inaccuracies and stereotypes, while ethnic classification is normally more
accurate of a cultural group because it is defined by the group itself.

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4.5. Theories of Ethnicity: Primordialism, Instrumentalism and Social Constructivism

Since the middle of twentieth century, when ethnicity as an analytical concept entered the
academic arena, a lot has been written and debated on its conceptual definitions, its
manifestations in social or group interaction, the role it plays in group mobilization for ‗common
ends‘, and so forth. In general, the Primordialist, Instrumentalist and Constructivist are the
dominant theoretical approaches in anthropology envisaged to understand the nature and
characteristics of ethnicity, ethnic identity and ethnic interaction.

Table 1 - Three Basic Anthropological Approaches for Understanding Ethnicity

Perspective Description
Primordialist Approach Ethnicity is fixed at birth. Ethnic identification is based on deep,
„primordial‟ attachments to a group or culture
Instrumentalist Approach Ethnicity, based on people‟s “historical” and “symbolic” memory
is something created and used and exploited by leaders and others
in the pragmatic pursuit of their own interests.
Constructivist Approach Ethnic identity is not something people “possess” but something
they “construct” in specific social and historical contexts to
further their own interests. It is therefore fluid and subjective.

These theories broadly reflect changes of approach in anthropology over the past 20 years, i.e.
the shift from cultural evolution theories, to structural-functionalist theories, to conflict theories,
and finally to postmodern theories. These changes are related to the twin forces of modernity and
globalization. Globalization started as an economic phenomenon and end up as a phenomenon of
identity. Modernity has, remade life in such a way that ―the past is stripped away, place loses its
significance, community loses its hold, objective moral norms vanish, and what remains is simply
the self.” The result of this process has been a loss of identity resulting in fragmentation and
rootlessness (anomie) at the personal level and the blurring of identities at the collective level.

4.5.1. The Primordial Model of Ethnicity

The Primordialist approach is the oldest in anthropological literature. It was popular until the
mid-1970s. The roots of Primordialist thinking can be traced back to the German Romantic
philosophers. Especially Herder (1744–1803), proclaimed the primacy of emotions and

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language, and defined society a deep-seated, mythical community. Herder envisaged that every
people had its own values, customs, language and spirit and bound one closely with one‘s
people. Indeed, Primordialism is an ―objectivist or essentialist theory‖ which argues that
―ultimately there is some real, tangible, foundation for ethnic identification.‖

An anthropologist called Clifford Geertz (1973: 255-310), articulated ethnicity as a natural

phenomenon with its foundations in primordial ties deriving mainly from kinship, locality and
culture. Geertz explicitly recognizes not only the role of culture in defining the primordial
'givens', but also that strength of such primordial bonds, and the types of them that are important,
differ from person to person, from society to society, and from time to time. Further, Geertz is
perfectly clear that what matters analytically is that ties of blood, language and culture are seen
by actors to be ineffable and obligatory; that they are seen as natural. In its general sense then,
ethnicity is something given, ascribed at birth, deriving from the kin-and-clan-structure of human
society, and hence something more or less fixed and permanent.

A model by Isaacs (1974) further illustrated the concept of primordial ties as a means of
explaining the power and persistence of ethnic identity, which he called ‗basic group identity‘.
Isaacs‘s basic group identity was linked to ethnic identity, which was argued to be assigned at
birth and more fundamental and natural than other social links.

Primordialist theories view human society as a conglomeration of distinct social groups. At

birth a person ―becomes‖ a member of a particular group. Ethnic identification is based on deep,
‗primordial‘ attachments to that group, established by kinship and descent. One‘s ethnicity is
thus ―fixed‖ and an unchangeable part of one‘s identity.

Anthony Smith (1986), theorized the defining elements of ethnic identification as psychological
and emotional, emerging from a person’s historical and cultural backgrounds. He illustrated
that the ‘core’ of ethnicity resides in the myths, memories, values, symbols and the
characteristic styles of particular historic configurations, i.e., what he calls „a myth-symbol
complex‟. The durability of the ethnic group resides in the forms and content of the myth-symbol
complex. Of pivotal importance for the survival of the ethnic group is the diffusion and
transmission of the myth-symbol complex to its unit of population and its future generations.

To sum, Smith concluded that, ‗primordialism‘ makes two distinct claims. Firstly, ethnicity and
ethnic attachment is ―natural and innate‖, which would never change over time, and secondly, it

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is ―ancient and perennial‖. By this, ethnicity is an ascribed status and ethnic membership is
fixed, permanent and primarily ascribed through birth.

4.5.2. Instrumentalist (Situational) Theory of Ethnicity

The instrumentalist theorists view ethnicity as situationally defined, depending on rational

calculations of advantage and stimulated by political mobilization under the leadership of actors
whose main motives are non-ethnic. Banks (1996) explained the instrumentalist understandings
of ethnicity as an instrument of group mobilization for political and economic ends. By this,
ethnicity is something that can be changed, constructed or even manipulated to gain specific
political and/or economic ends.

Proponents of this perspective (e.g., Abner Cohen, Paul Brass and Ted Gurr) advocate that in the
contexts of modern states, leaders (political elites) use and manipulate perceptions of ethnic
identity to further their own ends and stay in power. In this regard, ethnicity is created in the
dynamics of elite competition within the boundaries determined by political and economic
realities” and ethnic groups are to be seen as a product of political myths, created and
manipulated by culture elites in their pursuit of advantages and power.

Cohen (1974), one of the leading advocator of this perspective, ―placed greater emphasis on the
ethnic group as a collectively organized strategy for the protection of economic and political
interests”. Ethnic groups share common interests, and in pursuit of these interests they develop
―basic organizational functions: such as distinctiveness or boundaries (ethnic identity);
communication; authority structure; decision making procedure; ideology; and socialization”.

Accordingly, Daniel Bell (1975) and Jeffrey Ross (1982) emphasize the political advantage of
ethnic membership choice. Hence, ethnicity is "a group option in which resources are mobilized
for the purpose of pressuring the political system to allocate public goods for the benefit of the
members of a self-differentiating collectivity" (Ross, 1982). In his anthropological research on
New York China town, Enoch Wan has found that the ―Chinese ethnicity‖ of this immigrant
community is circumstantial, flexible, fluid and instrumental.

Taken to its extreme this would suggest that the ethnic group should be regarded not as a
community at all but as a rational and purposive association. There is indeed a cultural content
in an ethnic community, but that the boundaries of the group depend upon the purpose in hand.

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4.5.3. Social Constructivist Theory of Ethnicity

The basic notion in this approach is that ethnicity is something that is being negotiated and
constructed in everyday living. It regards ethnicity as a process, which continues to unfold.
Ethnicity is constructed in the process of feeding, clothing, sending to school and conversing
with children and others. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this approach is its subjectivist
stance, which sees ethnicity as basically a social-psychological reality or a matter of perception
of "us" and "them" in contradistinction to looking at it as something given, which exists
objectively as it were "out there". By this, ethnicity is more dependent on the socio-
psychological experience of individuals, where it focuses on the interpersonal and behavioral
aspects of ethnicity. However, this does not mean that all ―subjectivists‖ reject all objective
aspects of ethnicity. Some, in fact give them significant attention.

Barth is the leading figure of this approach. Barth viewed ethnic identity as an ―individualistic
strategy‖ in which individuals move from one identity to another to “advance their personal
economic and political interests, or to minimize their losses‖. Following Barth, ethnic identity
forms through boundary maintenance and interaction between individuals. Depending on each
social interaction, a person‘s ethnic identity can be perceived or presented in various ways.

Barth separated culture from the concept of ethnicity. For him, ethnic boundaries were
psychological boundaries; ethnic culture and its content were irrelevant. Overall, interaction
between individuals does not lead to an assimilation or homogenization of culture. Instead,
cultural diversity and ethnic identity are still maintained, but in a non-static form. Cultural traits
and even individuals can cross over ethnic boundaries, which in turn can transform an ethnic
group over time. Ethnic group is a result of group relations in which the boundaries are
established through mutual perceptions and not by means of any objectively distinct culture.

In general, constructivists conceive ethnicity as situational, flexible and variable dealing with
inter-personal ethnicity without initially reifying a concept of culture. Jenkins (1997) further
noted that, as far as the flow of individuals from one ethnic group to another is possible, it is
possible to argue that the boundaries of ethnicity are permeable and osmotic. This provoked that
ethnicity is dynamic that changes through time and space; and ethnic identities are
constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed.

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 Unit Five
5. Customary and Local Governance Systems and Peace Making
5.1. Indigenous and Local Governance

Indigenous systems of governance have been used to maintain social order across Ethiopian
regions. The role of indigenous governance was indispensable before the advent of the modern
state system. Anthropologists have been studying indigenous systems of governance in Ethiopia
and other parts of Africa. Some of the indigenous systems of governance have been well- studied
while many other are not adequately studied. Understanding of indigenous systems of
governance helps us know our cultures.

The Oromo Gadaa

The Gaada of the Oromo is one of the well-studied indigenous systems of governance. Scholars
have been studying the Oromo Gaada since the 1950s. Scholars studied the Oromo Gaada
include Paul Baxter, Eike Haberland and Asmerom Legesse. Asmerom, a famous anthropologist,
is widely known for his ethnographic studies on the Oromo political system. He published a lot
on the Gaada system, particularly focusing on the Borena Oromo. The following are two of his
books: Gadaa: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society, published in 1973; and Oromo
Democracy: An Indigenous Political System, printed in 2000.

The Gadaa system is ‗an age grading institution of the Oromo that has a complex system of
administration, law making and dispute settlement‘. The Gadaa is a highly celebrated institution
of governance and dispute settlement among the Oromo people. Gadaa is widely mentioned as
an egalitarian (democratic) system of governance. In the Gadaa system, political power is
transferred from one generation set (Luuba) to another every eight years. Gaada officials such as
the Abba Gaada and Abba Seera (father of law) serve for eight years and leave their position to
the new generation of Gadaa officials.

The Gaada system involves a continuous process of law making and revision. The law making
process has rooms for wider participation of the people. Gumi gaayo, a law making assembly of
the Borana Oromo, is a good example. Gumi gaayo is held every eight years to revising,
adapting, making and publicizing the customary law (seera) and custom (aadaa) of the Oromo.
The Waliso Oromo have a law making assembly known as yaa‟iiharaa, an equivalent of

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gumigaayo, held every eight years. The Gaada is an indigenous system of governance, conflict
resolution, and peacemaking. The indigenous system of governance among the Oromo also
include institutions of conflict resolution such as the Jaarsa Biyyaa (literally: elders of the
soil/land) institution.

The Gedeo Baalle

The Gedeo of southern Ethiopia have an indigenous system of governance called Baalle. The
Baalle and the Gaada system of the Oromo have some similarities. For example, both have
grading system and exercise periodic transfer of power (i.e., every eight years). The role of
religion is high in the two indigenous systems of governance. Moreover, the customary law of
the Gedeo is called Seera. The Ya‘a, the general assembly, is the highest body of the Gedeo
indigenous system of governance. The Baalle is a complex system which has three
administrative hierarchies: Abba Gada, Roga (traditional leader next the Abba Gada), and two
levels of council of elders known as Hulla Hayyicha and Songo Hayyicha. The Abba Gada is the
leader of the Baalle. The Baalle system has a body of laws called Seera. Conflicts are resolved
by the Songo hayyicha at village level. When disputes are not settled at the village level, cases
can be referred to first to the Hulla Hayyicha and finally to the Abba Gada. In general, the Gedeo
system of governance has the following major institutions: the ya‟a (general assembly), the
Seera (customary law), the Abba Gada, and council of elders.

We have seen some similarities between the Oromo Gaada and the Gedeo Baalle
system. This is a good example of cross-cultural similarities in Ethiopia. Similarities
are also observed in the naming of indigenous institutions. Several ethnic groups use
a similar term with slight variations to refer to their respective customary law: Seera
(Oromo), Sera (Sidama), Serra (Siltie), Gorden asera (Soddo Gurage), Senago sera
(Mesqan Gurage), and Seera (Gedeo).

Dere Woga of the Gamo

The Gamo are among Omotic peoples of southern Ethiopia. Unlike their neighboring people
such as Wolayta and Dawro, the Gamo did not have a centralized political system. The Gamo
people were organized into several local administrations locally known as deres. According to
anthropological findings, there were more than 40 deres across the Gamo highlands. Each dere

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had its own ka‟o (king) and halaqa (elected leader). The indigenous system of governance
embraces the dere woga (customary law) and the dubusha assemblies. The highest body of the
indigenous governance is the dere dubusha, a general assembly that is responsible to make and
revise customary laws, resolve major disputes that cannot be solved at the lower levels. The
dubushas assembly has three hierarchies: 1) the dere dubusha (at the top), sub-dere dubusha (at
the middle), and guta/neighborhood dubusha (at the village level). Minor cases and disputes are
resolved by the dere cima, council of elders. Like the Oromo Gada and the Gedeo Baalle, the
indigenous governance of the Gamo is embedded in the Gamo belief system. It is believed that
telling a lie and hiding the truth are considered as violation of taboo, which would lead to
spiritual pollution and then misfortunes including lack of fertility, illness, and death of human
beings and livestock.

5.2 Intra and Inter-ethnic Conflict Resolution Institutions

Conflicts and disputes exist in every society and community. Conflicts may arise between
individuals, groups and communities within the same ethnic group. In some cases conflicts may
involve groups from different ethnic background. Peoples across Ethiopian regions have
indigenous institutions and mechanisms of conflict resolution and peacemaking. These
institutions are parts of indigenous systems of governance. As Ethiopia is a big multicultural
country, we need to discuss these issues taking some examples. You, as a student, are expected
to read different materials and discuss issues with your classmates to expand your knowledge.

There are different indigenous institutions of conflict resolution and peacemaking across regions
and cultures in Ethiopia. Authors use different terms to discuss these indigenous institutions. The
following are some of them: customary dispute resolution mechanisms; traditional mechanisms
of conflict resolution; grassroots justice systems; and customary justice institutions.

Study findings reveal variations and similarities among indigenous institutions of conflict
resolution in Ethiopia. Indigenous justice institutions and mechanisms share several common
aspects including the following:

 High involvement of elders at different stages of conflict resolution and peacemaking

process.
 Preference and respect for elders known for their qualities including experience in dispute
resolution; knowledge of customary laws, procedures, norms and values of the society;

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 impartiality, respect for rules and people; the ability of listening and speaking politely;
honesty and tolerance.
 Indigenous dispute resolution practices focus on restoring social relationships, harmony,
and peaceful coexistence.

Indigenous justice systems also have differences in terms of hierarchies, procedures and level of
complexities. For example,

 In some cultural settings, conflict resolution mechanisms involve several hierarchies and
complicated procedures;

The compositions and responsibilities of council of elders also vary from society to society. For
example, different types of elders address different forms of disputes in some cultural settings;
whereas the same body of elders deal with various types of disputes in Indigenous/customary
justice institutions have been widely used across Ethiopian regions and cultures. With some
exceptions, customary justice institutions include three major components. The three components
are 1) customary laws, 2) council of elders, and 3) customary courts or assemblies.

 Customary law: refers to a body of rules, norms, and a set of moral values that serve as a
wider framework for human conduct and social interactions. The Sera of the Sidama, the
dere woga of the Gamo, the Seera Addaa of the Oromo; Gordena Sera of Kestane Gurage
are examples of customary laws. Most customary laws are available orally, but some
others are published in recent years. For example, the Sebat Bet Gurage published their
customary law named Kitcha: The Gurage Customary Law in 1998. Similarly,
Kistane/Sodo Gurage has a written version of customary law known as Gordena Shengo.

 Council of elders: It is the second important institution of customary justice systems. The
council of elders embraces highly respected and well-experienced community members
who have a detail knowledge of the customary laws. Members of the elder‘s council are
also known for their personal qualities such as truthfulness and experience in settling
conflicts. Elders often serve their communities on voluntary basis without any payment.
The number of the elders varies based on the nature of the case. The institution of council
of elders has different names in various ethnic groups: Yehager Shimagile (Amhara),
Jaarsaa Biyyaa (Oromo), Hayyicha (Gedeo), Guurtii (Somali), Dere Cima (Gamo),
Deira Cimma (Wolayita), and Cimuma (Burji).

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  Customary courts are public assemblies that serve two major purposes: (a) hearing,
discussing and settling disputes, and (b) revising, adapting, and making laws.

In general, indigenous justice systems in Ethiopia embrace three major structures: customary
laws, customary courts, and council of elders. The customary justice system of the Gamo people
of Southern Ethiopia has the following branches: 1) Dere Woga, customary laws, 2) Dere Cima,
council of elders, and 3) Dubusha, customary courts or assemblies.

The Three Structures of Gamo Customary Justice System

The Dere Woga: It is a comprehensive body of rules and procedures that govern a wide range of
issues including inheritance, property ownership, marriage and divorce, conflict resolution and
gender division of labor.
The Dere Cima: Literally, dere cima means elders of the land/country. It includes notable and
respected elders experienced in resolving disputes. Elders serving in dispute resolution are
expected to have a sound knowledge of the customary laws, norms and values of the community.
Dere dubusha: It is the biggest customary court in a given Gamo community, has two major
functions: (a) hearing, discussing and resolving disputes, and (b) revising and making laws. In
most Gamo communities, the structure of the customary courts has three levels: Guta dubusha,
at the village level; sub-dere dubusha, at the kebele level; and dere dubusha at the higher level.
Cases would be heard at the guta dubusha level, if not settled, referred to the second and third
level of the structure. According to the indigenous belief, dere dubusha is a sacred place where
supernatural power exists. It is a place where curses are uttered in its name; justice is delivered;
and important assemblies are held. Dubushas are places where truth prevails. Misconducts such
as telling a lie during dubusha assemblies are considered as transgression of taboos, which in
turn would bring misfortunes to individuals and communities. Customary courts are easily
accessible as each Gamo community has several customary courts.

Strengths and Limitations of Customary Justice Systems/Institutions

Studies indicated that indigenous institutions of dispute resolution have strengths and limitations.

Strengths of customary justice institutions

Incur limited cost in terms of time and resources/money; elders do not request payment
for their services; fines and compensation are relatively small;

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 Conflict resolution process are held in public spaces in the community; different parties
(victims, offenders and community members) participate in the process; decisions are
communicated in public;
Decisions are easily enforced through community-based sanctions including social
exclusion; compliance ensured through blessings and the threat of curses;
Customary systems aimed at restoring community cohesion, social relations, collective
spirit and social solidarity
Rely on respect for elders, the tradition of forgiveness, transferring compensations,
embedded in indigenous beliefs
Limitations of customary justice institutions
Indigenous justice institutions are dominated by men. For example, the council of elders
are not open to elderly women. Women are excluded from participation at customary
courts and assemblies with a few exceptions.

Indigenous institutions of dispute resolution and peacemaking are effective to resolve

dispute and restore peace within the same ethnic group. Their potential in resolving
inter-ethnic conflicts and restoring long-lasting peace is very limited.

5.3. Inter-ethnic Conflict Resolution

One of the weaknesses of indigenous institution of peacemaking is their limitation in resolving

inter-ethnic conflicts. But there are some examples of inter-ethnic conflict resolution institutions
in some parts of Ethiopia. Abbo Gereb is one of the indigenous institutions that address inter-
ethnic conflicts. It is a dispute resolution institution in Rayya and Wajirat district, Southern
Tigray. Abbo Gereb, means the father of the river Gerewo. Abbo Gereb serves to settle disputes
between individuals or groups from highland Tigray and lowland Afar. Conflict between the two
groups often arises because of dispute over grazing land or water resources, particularly in dry
season. When conflict arises between parties from two ethnic groups, notable elders from Tigray
and Afar come together to resolve the dispute and restore peaceful relations. Most of the elders
involved in inter-ethnic conflict resolutions are bilingual: speaking Tigrigna and Afar.

Inter-ethnic conflict resolution mechanisms exist when conflicts arise among Afar, Issa,
Tigrayans and Argobba. The mechanisms have different names. It is called Xinto among the
Afar, Edible among the Issa, Gereb among the Tigrayans, and Aboroge among the Amhara.

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5.4. Women‟s Role in Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking

Ethiopian women participate in the process of dispute settlement in exceptional cases. In some
cultures, women participate in dispute settlement processes when cases are related to marriage
and women‘s issues. Women are participating indigenous systems of governance, conflict
resolution, and peacemaking activities. In some societies, women use their own institutions to
exercise power, protect their rights, and actively participate in peacemaking activities.

One of the limitations of customary justice systems is the marginalization of women. In most
cases, indigenous institutions of conflict resolution are dominated by men. This does not mean
that women are completely excluded from conflict resolution and peacemaking activities. Three
examples that illustrate the role of women in conflict resolution and peacemaking are;
Women‟s Peacemaking Sticks

Sidama women have two instruments of power: the Yakka and the Siqqo. The Yakka is women‟s
association or unity group. The Siqqo is a stick that symbolizes peace and women honor. The
Siqqo and the Yakka are closely associated. Mobilizing the Yakka and holding the Siqqo, Sidama
women stand for their customary rights. They do this, for example, when a woman is beaten up
by her husband or a pregnant woman is mistreated. For example, if a man prohibits his wife
from Yakka participation, the women group impose a fine on him. The fine could be an ox. If a
woman is ill-treated by her husband, the Yakka leader (known as Qaritte) mobilizes the Yakka
and leads them to the house of the man. The husband would not have a choice when he is
surrounded by the Yakka holding their Siqqo shouting and singing. If he is found guilty, the man
would be forced to slaughter a sheep and give part of it to the Yakka. Sidama women also use
their Siqqo to make peace between quarrelling parties. Oromo women also have a peace stick
called Sinqee. Sinqee serves the purpose of protecting women‟s rights and making peace.
Quarrelling men stop fighting when a woman stands between them holding her Sinqee.

The function of women’s peacemaking institutions such as Siqqo has been declining. There
are attempts to renew these institutions. The Walda Sinqee Association was established to
promote the use of the Sinqee as a means of conflict resolution. The Association provides
other services to women: refugee centers for abused women, legal and financial support, and
capacity building trainings. Sinqee associations are now recognized and supported by women’s
affairs and culture and tourism offices in Oromia.

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Don Kachel: Agnuak women peacemaking institution

Women in many regions of Ethiopia play an important role in peacemaking. Agnuak women
have a peacemaking institution known as Don Kachel. Literally, Don Kachel means „let us all
live in peace‟. It involves a peace-making movement initiated by Jaye, a group of wise and
elderly Agnuak women. The Jaye start a peace-making movement based on information gathered
through women‟s networking. The Jaye gather information about potential conflicts from
different sources, including gossips spread in the community. The Jaye quickly act upon
receiving information about, for example, a heated argument that could lead to conflict and
fighting. The Jaye call the disputing parties for a meeting to settle the dispute. A few neutral
observers will also be invited to monitor the process of the meeting. After examining the
arguments of the two parties, the Jaye give their verdict. The party that caused the conflict
request for forgiveness in public and pay some compensation. A sheep or goat is slaughtered
after the conflict resolved; the meat is cooked and shared by participants of the meeting. Finally
the Jaye would announce the meeting is over, the problem resolved, using these words „Now let
us all live in peace together!‟ The practice of Don Kachel is currently being adopted by other
ethnic groups including the Nuer, Mejenger, Opo, and Komo.

The role of women as mothers has been highly respected in Ethiopia. At times of
potential conflict, women, bearing their breast, would say the following to stop conflicts:
‘please stop quarreling for the sake of my breast that feeds you!’Women use powerful
words such as ‘batebahuh tutie’ in Amharic speaking areas to influence quarrelling
individuals. Younger people used to respect the words of mothers and the elderly.

Women‟s institution of reconciliation: Raya-Azebo, Tigray

Elderly and highly respected women in a village in Raya-Azebo, Tigray established a reconciliation
institution called the Debarte. The Debarte plays an important role in avoiding harms associated with the
culture of revenge. A man may kill another man in a fight. The incident would trigger the feeling of
revenge among male relatives of the murdered man. In such a tense situation, the wife of the killer
requests for the Debarte intervention. The Debarte quickly start their intervention to stop the act of
revenge. The Debarte instruct the murderer‟s wife to gathering her female relatives together. The wife
and her female relatives get ready wearing their netela upside down and covering their hair with black
cloths to show their grief and regret. After these preparations, the Debarte lead the female relatives of the

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killer to the home of the murdered man. The women cry loudly while walking to their destination. As they
come near to the home of the killed person, they utter the following words: „Abyetye ezgio! „Oh God help
us! Upon their arrival at the compound of the victim, the Debarte kneel down and cover their heads with
the dust of the compound. They beg the relatives/family of the murdered man to give up revenge and
consider forgiveness. Initially, the relatives may not respond to the request; however, they will change
their mind and open the door to show their consent for reconciliation. After persuading the victim‟s
relatives to give up revenge, the Debarte give the way for elders who start the peace-making process.

5.5. Legal Pluralism: Interrelations between Customary, Religious and State Legal Systems

Legal pluralism refers to the existence of two or more legal or justice systems in a given society
or country. Legal pluralism indicates the co-existence of multiple legal systems working side-by-
side in the same society. Legal pluralism is evident in the Ethiopian context. Multiple legal
institutions, including customary laws and courts, state laws and courts, and religious laws and
courts (e.g., the Sharia Law) work side-by-side in most parts of the country. The FDRE
Constitution provides ample space for religious and customary laws and courts to address
personal and family cases. The following two Articles show this reality.

 In accordance with provisions to be specified by law, a law giving recognition to

marriage concluded under systems of religious or customary laws may be enacted
(Article 34(4).

 Religious and customary courts that had state recognition and functioning prior to the
adoption of the Constitution shall be organized on the basis of recognition accorded to
them by the Constitution. (Article 78(5))

Legal pluralism is a pervasive phenomenon in Ethiopia. This is because a single legal system
does not have a capability to address all legal cases and maintaining peace and order. Hence,
different justice institutions work side-by-side in most parts of the country, especially in remote
and rural areas. These include; state/formal justice institutions, customary justice institutions, and
religious courts.

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 Unit Six
6. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and Practices

6.1. Definition of concepts

6.1.1. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)

IKS is defined as technical insight of wisdom gained and developed by people in a particular
locality through years of careful observation and experimentation with the phenomena around
them. IKS is not just a set of information that is in the minds of the people, which can be simply
taped and applied. It is accessible by recall and practice. IKS is embodied in culture and is
described as an integrated pattern of human knowledge, beliefs and behavior. It consists of
language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, artifacts, rituals,
ceremonies, folklores and gender. This culture is passed down from one generation to the next
generation and generally it provides a holistic view of how to use natural resources based on
traditional ethical perspectives. IKS refer to a body of empirical knowledge and beliefs handed
down through generations of long-time inhabitants of a specific locale, by cultural transmission,
about the relationship of living beings with each other and their environment.

In sum, IKS refers to ― a total of knowledge and practices, whether explicit or implicit, used in
the management of socioeconomic, ecological and spiritual facets of life, stored in the collective
memory and communicated orally among members of the community and to the future
generations [through stories, myth, songs, etc].

6.1.2. Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous Peoples

In international context, while the term ‗indigenous‘ is understood (mostly by Europeans) as

being similar or synonym to ‗traditional‘, ‗aboriginal‘, ‗vernacular‘, ‗African‘, ‗Black‘, and
‗native American‘, the phrase ‗indigenous people' refers to a specific group of people occupying
a certain geographic area for many generations. Indigenous people possess, practice and protect a
total sum of knowledge and skills constitutive of their meaning, belief systems, livelihood
constructions and expression that distinguish them from other groups.

However, the concept ―indigenous‖ is a social and historical construct with high political, social,
and economic stakes. Definitions of indigenous in international governing organizations (IGOs),

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are highly contested. The World Bank's (2003) definition of indigenous peoples includes close
attachment to ancestral territories and the natural resources in them; presence of customary social
and political institutions; economic systems primarily oriented to subsistence production; an
indigenous language, often different from the predominant language; and self-identification and
identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group.

Indigenousness, as defined by indigenous peoples, focuses on the relationship with the

community in which they live. In each definition the distinction between the communities is
cited. Both definitions also highlight the relationship of indigenous peoples to the power
structure within the state, noting that indigenous groups are disadvantaged or lack control.
Territory is also essential in the definitions. Being indigenous is about ―continuity of habitation,
aboriginality, and often a ‗natural‘ connection to the land‖. For example, in the cosmology of
Native Hawaiians the land is an ancestor who gave birth to Hawaiians (Trask 1999). Thus, the
relationship to the land is a form of kinship. There is a sense of stewardship and of duty to not
only use the resources that the land gives for sustenance, but to do what each generation can to
perpetuate the health and fertility of the land.

Academic definitions focus on the following elements of indigenous identity: living in tradition-
based cultures, having political autonomy prior to colonialism, and seeking to preserve
cultural integrity in the present (Corntassel, 2003). They also recognize the role of land to
indigenous peoples—noting that they are descended from inhabitants of the land they occupy.

In 1986, however, a working definition of Indigenous peoples was offered by the UN Working
Group on Indigenous Issues by Martinez Cobo J. According to this definition:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with
pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves
distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.
They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop
and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis
of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social
institutions and legal systems (Martinez Cobo, 1982).
In sum, despite the lack of an authoritative/formal universal definition for the concept of
indigenous peoples, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) sets

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outs distinguishing features as a guide for indigenous peoples across the globe. This includes the:
Self- identification as Indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the
community as their member;
Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies;
Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources;
Distinct social, economic or political systems;
Distinct language, culture and beliefs;
Formation of non-dominant groups of society; and
Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as
distinctive peoples and communities.

Regarding their number, it is estimated that there are approximately 370 million indigenous
peoples live in some 90 countries across the world. While they constitute 5 per cent of the
world‘s population, they make up 15 per cent of the world‘s disadvantaged. Of the 7,000
languages in the world today, it is estimated that more than 4,000 are spoken by the indigenous
peoples. Practicing their respective unique traditions, indigenous people retain social, cultural,
economic and political characteristics which are distinct and different from those of the larger
societies in which they live (Bahar , 2010).

Indigenous Knowledge (IK)

Literatures on indigenous knowledge do not provide a single definition of the concept. This is in
part due to the differences in background and perspectives of the authors, ranging from social
anthropology to agricultural engineering.

According to Warren, indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge – knowledge that is unique
to a given culture or society. Since every population is unique in terms of its environment, its
resources and its tools (both physical and conceptual), IK will also be unique. IK contrasts with
the international knowledge system generated by universities, research institutions and private
firms. It is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture, health care, food preparation,
education, natural-resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities.

For Kwaku and Morena (2010), IK is a unique local knowledge to a given culture or society. IK
exists in rural and urban societies as part of life that their livelihood depends on specific skills
and knowledge for survival.

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The World Bank refers IK as a large body of knowledge and skills which is developed outside
the formal system including development planning, environmental assessment, resource
management, local conservation of biological resources, and conflict resolution.

IK has different but closely related names such as 'folk knowledge', 'local knowledge or wisdom',
'non-formal knowledge', 'culture', 'indigenous technical knowledge', 'traditional ecological
knowledge', 'traditional knowledge', and others. All these terms have similar concepts and refer
to how members of a community perceive and understand their environment and resources,
particularly the way they convert those resources through labor (Akabogu, 2002).

In sum, indigenous knowledge is the knowledge that people in a given community have
developed over time, and that continues to develop. It is based on experience, often tested over
centuries of use, adapted to local culture and environment, dynamic and changing.

6.1.3. Special Features of Indigenous Knowledge

Ellen and Harris (1996) identified the following special features of indigenous knowledge that
distinguish it broadly from other knowledge.

1. Local, in that it is rooted in a particular community and situated within broader cultural
traditions; it is a set of experiences generated by people living in those communities.
2. Tacit knowledge and, therefore, not easily codifiable.
3. Transmitted orally, or through imitation and demonstration.
4. Experiential rather than theoretical knowledge. Experience and trial and error, tested in the
rigorous laboratory of survival of local communities constantly reinforce IK.
5. Learned through repetition, which is a defining characteristic of tradition even when new
knowledge is added. Repetition aids in the retention and reinforcement of IK.
6. Constantly changing, being produced as well as reproduced, discovered as well as lost;
though it is often perceived by external observers as being somewhat static.

Significance of Indigenous Knowledge

Until recently, the development of a community‘s conception of knowledge was influenced

primarily by the philosophy and methods of western science. ―Few, outside of some
anthropologists and historians recognized that there are numerous sciences embedded in cultures
of other peoples and civilizations throughout the world.

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Today, however, both scholars and public policy makers are recognizing the importance of
various local or culture-based knowledge systems in addressing the pressing problems of
development and the environment‖ (ibid). Indigenous knowledge is important in that people in a
community value whatever resource they get from the environment through sustainable
production systems. These communities are conscious of the need to self-reliant in capital stocks
and management skills (Mangetane et al, 2001).

The knowledge of local people is an enabling component of development. In this regard; a large
percentage of the earth's genetic diversity has been maintained and managed through farmer's
IKS. IKS enables people to develop strategies for handling household and communal activities.
In Ethiopia Debo and Jige are important uniting forces in communal activities. Members of the
community unite to provide essential inputs, including direct labor to operations. This
deployment of manpower is strongly supported by IKS, which is composed of technologies,
rules, information, approaches, and relationships that are vital to sustainable development.

Over the years, IKS authorities (elders) make local rules to protect important resources such as
useful plants, water bodies, stone terracing, agro-forestry, watersheds and rivers, food
preservations, conflict management, calendar, fallowing as a soil regeneration practice, etc.
According to Paula Puffer (1995), indigenous / local knowledge can help find the best solution to
a development challenges. For example, familiarity with local knowledge can help extensionists
and researchers understand and communicate better with local people.

In general, indigenous knowledge is an important part of the lives of the poor. IK is a key
element of the ―social capital‖ of the poor; their main asset to invest in the struggle for survival,
to produce food, to provide for shelter or to achieve control of their own lives. Furthermore, one
cannot overlook indigenous knowledge‘s ability to provide effective alternatives to Western
know-how. IK offers local people and their development workers further options in designing
new projects or addressing specific problems and wider disasters. Instead of relying on imported
Western technologies, people in the developing nations can choose from readily available
indigenous knowledge or, where appropriate, combine indigenous and Western technology.

However, it is important to note that not all indigenous practices are beneficial to the sustainable
development of a local community; and not all IK can provide the right solution for a given
problem. Typical examples are slash and burn agriculture and female circumcision. Hence,

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before adopting IK, integrating it into development programs, or even disseminating it, practices
need to be scrutinized for their appropriateness just as any other technology.

6.3. Indigenous Knowledge and Development

Indigenous knowledge refers to what indigenous people know and do, and what they have
known and done for generations – practices that evolved through trial and error and proved
flexible enough to cope with change (Melchias, 2001).

IK passes from one generation to the next and enable indigenous people to survive, manage their
natural resources and the ecosystems surrounding them like animals, plants, rivers, seas, natural
environment, economic, cultural and political organization. In other words, ''IK is relevant to
development process such as agriculture, animal husbandry, traditional medicine, saving and
credit, community development, poverty alleviation, and peaceful coexistence''.

Indigenous knowledge may help identify cost-effective and sustainable mechanisms for poverty
alleviation that are locally manageable and meaningful. It increases and enhances livelihood
options, revitalize agriculture, increase food security, improve health and promote a sense of
cultural pride within the community (Kudzayi et al, 2013). ''Indigenous knowledge is used at the
local level by communities as the basis for decisions pertaining to food security, human and
animal health, education, natural resources management, and other vital activities''.

Since efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability are key determinants of the quality of
development work, harnessing indigenous knowledge has a clear development business case.
Early indications point to significant improvements in development project quality, if IK is
leveraged with modern technologies. Building on IK systems also empowers local communities.
Empowerment, especially of the poor, is a core objective of most development efforts.

According to the 1998/99 World Development Report, knowledge, not capital, is the key to
sustainable social and economic development. Building on local knowledge, the basic
component of any country‘s knowledge system, is the first step to mobilize such capital. As to
the same report, the challenge for the development community is to find better ways to learn
about indigenous institutions and practices and where necessary adapt modern techniques (i.e.,
―global best practices‖) to the local practices. The key factor in the adaptation process is the
involvement of those who possess indigenous knowledge. A study of 121 rural water projects in

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49 countries found that 70 percent succeeded when the intended beneficiaries participated in
project design, compared to a 10 percent success rate among programs where they did not.

In sum, indigenous knowledge, along with western based knowledge, helps create development
solutions that are culturally acceptable by the community. In the past, such knowledge has been
ignored and development solutions have been created that were not economically feasible or
culturally acceptable by the local community.

6.4. Preservation, Challenges and Limitations of IK

Indigenous knowledge, which has generally been passed from generation to generation orally, is
in danger of being lost unless it is formally documented and preserved (Amare, 2009). The future
of IK is uncertain and the loss of IK would impoverish society because, just as the world needs
genetic diversity of species, it needs diversity of knowledge systems (Labelle, 1997). The rapid
change in the way of life of local communities has largely accounted for the loss of IK. Younger
generations underestimate the utility of IK systems because of the influence of modem
technology and education (Ulluwishewa, 1999).

If IK is not recorded and preserved, it may be lost and remain inaccessible to other indigenous
systems as well as to development workers. Development projects cannot offer sustainable
solutions to local problems without integrating local knowledge (Warren, 1991).

Since IK is essential to development, it must be gathered, organized and disseminated, just like
Western knowledge. As IK is the key to local-level development, ignoring people‘s knowledge
leads possibly to failure. Similarly, ''one should not expect all the expertise for third world
development to come from developed nations, academic institutions, multinational corporations
or NGOs'' (Amare, 2009). In the face of dwindling resources available to African countries, and
noting that even the industrialized nation governments cannot provide for all the needs of the
people, it has been suggested that IK, and the technical expertise developed there from become
vital tools for rural development (Atte, 1989).

Regarding the challenges and limitations of IK, Amare (2009) states the following :

Although the knowledge of indigenous communities has been found to be very useful, the,
exploitation of natural resources, and increased competition for employment, has set off
a problematic chain of events. This modernization has influenced indigenous traditional

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 spread of industrialization threatens the preservation and continued development of IK
systems (Sherpa, 2005).

IK can also be eroded by wider economic and social forces. Pressure on indigenous
peoples to integrate with larger societies is often great and, as they become more
integrated, the social structures pressure by multinational agrochemical companies eager
to break into new markets (Thrupp, 1989). The growth of national and international
markets, the imposition o f educational and religious systems and the impact o f various
development processes are leading more and more to the “homogenization” of the
world‟s cultures. Consequently, indigenous beliefs, values, customs, know-how and
practices may be altered and the resulting knowledge base incomplete.

As with scientific knowledge, IK has the following limitations and drawbacks and these must be
recognized as well:

IK is sometimes accepted uncritically because of naive notions that whatever indigenous

people do is naturally in harmony with the environment. Thrupp (1989) argues that we
should reject “romanticized and idealistic views of local knowledge and traditional
societies”. There is historical and contemporary evidence that indigenous peoples have
also committed environmental sins‟ through over-grazing, over-hunting, or over-
cultivation of the land. It is misleading to think of IK as always being „good‟, „right or
„sustainable‟.

Quite often the overlooked feature of IK, which needs to be taken into account, is that, like
scientific knowledge, sometimes the knowledge which local people rely on is wrong or
even harmful. Practices based on, for example, mistaken beliefs, faulty experimentation,
or inaccurate information can be dangerous and may even be a barrier to improving the
wellbeing of indigenous people.

Doubleday (2003) pointed out that knowledge is power, so individuals are not always
willing to share knowledge among themselves, or with outsiders. Knowledge is a source of
status and income (as is the case, for example, with a herbalist) and is often jealously
guarded. A related issue is that some indigenous peoples fear that their IK will be
misused, and lacking the power to prevent such abuses, they choose to keep quiet.

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6.5. The Erosion of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)

Despite the fact that some IK is lost naturally as techniques and tools are modified or fall out of
use, the recent and current rate of loss is accelerating because of rapid population growth, growth
of international markets, educational systems, environmental degradation, and development
processes — pressures related to rapid modernization and cultural homogenization (Louise
Grenier, 1998). Below, some examples are given by Grenier to illustrate these mechanisms:

With rapid population growth; often due to in-migration or government relocation

schemes in the case of large development projects, such as dams - standards of living
may be compromised. With poverty, opportunities for short-term gain are selected over
environmentally sound local practices. With increasing levels of poverty, farmers, for
example, may also have less time and fewer resources to sustain the dynamic nature of IK
systems through their local experiments and innovations.

The introduction of market-oriented agricultural and forestry practices focused on

mono-cropping is associated with losses in IK and IK practices, through losses in
biodiversity and cultural diversity.

In the short term, chemical inputs seem to reduce the need to tailor varieties to difficult
growing conditions, contributing to the demise of local varieties.

With deforestation, certain medicinal plants become more difficult to find (and the
knowledge or culture associated with the plants also declines).

More and more knowledge is being lost as a result of the disruption of traditional
channels of oral communication. Neither children nor adults spend as much time in their
communities anymore (for example, some people travel to the city on a daily basis to go
to school, to look for work, or to sell farm produce; many young people are no longer
interested in, or do not have the opportunity for, learning traditional methods). It is harder
for the older generation to transmit their knowledge to young people.

As IK is transmitted orally, it is vulnerable to rapid change - especially when people are

displaced or when young people acquire values and lifestyles different from those of their
ancestors.

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 Farmers traditionally maintained their indigenous crop varieties by keeping household
seed stocks and by obtaining seed through traditional family and community networks
and through exchanges with nearby communities. Some of these traditional networks
have been disrupted or no longer exist.

In the past, outsiders (for example, social, physical, and agricultural scientists, biologists,
colonial powers) ignored or maligned IK, depicting it as primitive, simple, static, ―not
knowledge,‖ or folklore. This historic neglect (regardless of its cause — racism,
ethnocentrism, or modernism, with its complete faith in the scientific method) has
contributed to the decline of IK systems, through lack of use and application.

Also, in some countries, official propaganda depicts indigenous cultures and methodologies as
backward or out of date and simultaneously promotes one national culture and one language at
the expense of minority cultures. Often, formal schooling reinforces this negative attitude. Local
people‘s perceptions (or misperceptions) of local species and of their own traditional systems
may need to be rebuilt. Some local people and communities have lost confidence in their ability
to help themselves and have become dependent on external solutions to their local problems.

In sum, indigenous peoples often have much in common with other neglected segments of
societies, i.e. lack of political representation and participation, economic marginalization and
poverty, lack of access to social services and discrimination.

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